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Getting Inky: A Comparison Of Color Sprays, Spray Inks and Mists

One day, a few weeks ago, I was playing around with some of my spray inks.  I happened to spritz one kind on top of another kind, and realized that they didn’t want to mix together.  It made the mad scientist in me come alive with wonder…and I started going crazy, spraying various ink sprays with each other, just to see how well they played together…did they LIKE each other, or not?  And really, how WERE they different? In a crafting world overflowing with different kinds of ink sprays, how do you know which kind(s) YOU need?

Pile of tags from my creative play time with spray inks

With so many spray inks on the market, how do you know what to choose?

Let me start with some basics…a few swatches (would it REALLY be a CTD post without some?).  I sprayed them first on plain white paper, and then over dictionary paper, so that you can get an idea of how opaque or translucent the sprays are. First I found all the various “glittery” sprays in my stash…Perfect Pearls spray, Inkadinkadoo Ink spray, Glimmer Mist, Chalkboard Glimmer Mist, and Maya Road Maya Mist.

“Shimmery” sprays, sprayed on white watercolor paper

“Shimmery” sprays, sprayed on dictionary page

So here’s the run down on what you get:  all of the sprays EXCEPT Perfect Pearls are highly pigmented.

  • Perfect Pearls Mists
    – no dye at all, just lots of sparkly mica powder, along with the liquid and binder, which is supposed to make it permanent; very transparent – colored shimmer, but not a colored spray.
  • Inkadinkado Spray Ink
    – smells strongly of alcohol, dries almost immediately, very pigmented, and the shimmer is sometimes a different color than the dye (brown mist, white shimmer)
  • Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist
    – bright and vibrant, translucent, tons of colors, lots of shimmer – tried and true shimmer spray
  • Tattered Angels Chalkboard Mist
    – chalky, semi-opaque mist, with glimmer, highly pigmented
  • Maya Road Mist
    – highly concentrated (difficult to read dictionary words through spray), good shimmer

Next, I sprayed my non-shimmer sprays, following the same steps as before.

Plain ink sprays on white watercolor paper

Plain sprays on dictionary paper showing that October Afternoons Sprinklers dried long before the other three sprays

Plain sprays on dictionary paper (dry)

Here are the results from the non-shimmer ink sprays and mists:

Next, after making sure all the samples were thoroughly dry, I put the mists to a water test.  I misted water over the samples, and brushed through them with a flat brush.  These are the results.

“Shimmery” sprays misted with water and brushed (after initially dried)

Plain sprays misted with water and brushed (after initially dried)

  • Perfect Pearls – in spite of the fact that they are supposed to be permanent, this one did react with the water and brushed away somewhat
  • Inkadinkadoo – slight halo of brush-off, but mostly stayed put
  • Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist – just the faintest halo around the sprayed area
  • Tattered Angels Chalboard Mist – just a faint halo around the sprayed area
  • Maya Road Maya Mist – did the best out of the shimmery sprays with no running or bleeding
  • Studio Calico Mr. Huey’s – WAS AMAZING – the water actually beaded up on the swatch of spray!!!  no bleeding or brush off!!
  • October Afternoon Sprinklers – a bit of the spray brushed away, and there was some bleeding
  • Ranger Dylusions – immediate reaction to the water with run-off and pooling (this spray is MADE to react with water)
  • Ranger Color Wash – also had immediate reaction to water, with brush off and pooling

I mentioned the amount of paint in the bottom of the October Afternoon Sprinklers.  I wanted to just show you, because this has been an issue for me at times. You can see that when the spray sits the liquid and the paint separate into two layers.  It does say to “shake well” on the side of the bottle.

October Afternoon Sprinklers ink spray – BEFORE shaking

However, even after vigorous shaking for 45-60 seconds, I am almost never able to completely shake up all of the paint sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This is what the same bottle looks like after I shook it for a full minute.

October Afternoon Sprinklers ink spray – AFTER shaking

I don’t know if this makes a big difference in the color of the spray, or if it can clog up the sprayer, but I have just noticed that in my assortment of this brand of sprays, it has been a consistent problem that I’ve had…being unable to get the paint to mix all the way.

Now, shall we look at some tags and see how these different sprays play together?

OA Sprinkler sprayed over SC Mr. Huey

On this first tag (one of the first where I discovered the sprays didn’t actually want to blend), I sprayed “Clay” colored Studio Calico Mister Huey’s using a chevron stencil.  {I realized after the fact that the stencil wasn’t completely clean, which is why there are a variety of colors mixed in with the Clay!} Once it was dry, I sprayed “Set Sail” colored October Afternoon Sprinklers ink spray over it.  You can see that the Mister Huey’s spray resisted the OA Sprinklers spray. This was done on a somewhat coated tag surface…so I wanted to find out if it would still work on a regular manila tag.  The following are examples of the same order of spray types:

OA Sprinkler (Boarding Pass) sprayed over SC Mr. Huey’s (Custard)

OA Sprinkler (Hopscotch) sprayed over SC Mr. Huey’s (Custard)

I wondered if the opposite would also be true – would the OA Sprinklers resist the Mr. Huey’s?

SC Mr. Huey’s sprayed over OA Sprinkler’s ink spray

It worked!  I first sprayed October Afternoon Sprinklers in “Frequent Flyer,” which is a very light blue/grey color, followed by Mister Huey’s in “Heirloom Blue.”  I don’t really know if it’s just because the Sprinkler’s created a barrier in the tag, or if they really resisted the Mister Huey’s…but you can clearly see the number stencil that I sprayed the MH through.

I decided to run with this experimenting…I wondered if the Mister Huey’s would resist ALL other sprays?

Ranger Dylusions sprayed over Mr. Huey’s

On this tag above, I first sprayed “Custard” colored Mister Huey’s, followed by “Grape” Dylusions spray.  I was especially curious to see how the Mister Huey’s would do with a dark color over a light color.  Even though I can see *some* of the purple settled on top of the clouds I used as my stencil for the yellow spray, it is clear that the Mister Huey’s did resist most of the spray and the yellow was not completely overtaken by the purple.

I was on a roll, so why not put the Opaque White Mister Huey’s to the test?  First, to give you an idea of what the Opaque White Mister Huey’s spray looks like, I used a stencil and sprayed it on a dark brown sheet of paper.

Studio Calico’s Mister Huey’s in Opaque White

Then I started spraying it on tags.

Dylusions spray over Opaque White Mr. Huey’s

Adirondack Color Wash sprayed over Opaque White Mr. Huey’s

On the first tag above, I sprayed the white Mister Huey’s through an alphabet stencil, and then I took the stencil and turned it upside down and pressed the stencil on the second tag.  Once they were both dry, I sprayed “Vibrant Turquoise” Dylusions ink spray on the first tag, and “Sunset Orange” Adirondack Color Wash on the second tag.  On both tags, the Mister Huey’s resisted the other spray…even though on the second tag, there really wasn’t that much of the Mister Huey’s, since it was just what was remaining on the stencil.  Nonetheless, it worked, and created a cool effect.

On this tag, I combined a couple different spray inks, water, and some stamping to create a fun tag.

Tag made with Dylusions, Color Wash, water, stencils, and stamping

I could honestly go on and on for days, playing with these spray inks!  They are just SO fun, and there are so many combinations.  My suggestion to you is to buy one or two favorite colors in a spray, to get a feel for whether or not you’re going to like the spray itself.  Play around with it, do some experimenting, spray it on lots of different mediums, use it in several ways…get to know it’s properties.  Then you can decide if you like it well enough to spend the money to invest in 15 (or 50) colors of it. Most of them retail for between $4.99 – $6.99 each, though they also vary in size, with the Ranger sprays (Perfect Pearls, Color Wash, Dylusions) and Glimmer Mist all being a nice 2-oz, while the Sprinklers and Mister Huey’s are only 1-oz bottles.

I leave you with my current spray count – sixty-nine!  I don’t think that’s actually a lot compared to some people, but considering at least half of those have been purchased in the last 3 months, to me it seems like a lot!

Now go mist something!

Comments

  1. Great post! I don’t have all of those sprays but really like seeing how they all work on different surfaces. Thanks.

  3. I’ll bet that OA under the MH worked due to the alcohol content in it. Very cool effect. Great post – very informative. Thank you!! 🙂

  4. I’m always reluctant to use the sprays I have as they cause the paper to wrinkle. How do you deal with that?

  5. Awnali- if you just use a quick mist or two, you should be OK on all weights of paper. For heavier applications, you’ll need heavier-weight paper. I routinely use cardstock with minimal warping, but you can always use cardboard and/or watercolor paper. And if you press you pieces within a phone book you can flatten out potential wrinkles. Good luck!

  6. Anwali – I’m curious what sprays you have, because I don’t usually have a problem with wrinkling unless I’m adding lots of water to dilute my sprays (like you can see in the photo above when I did the water test). I guess I mostly use my sprays on tags, in art journals (which have heavier weight paper), or on heavier weight scrapbooking card stock. But even using it on some of the patterned scrapbooking papers I have, I’ve never had a problem with warping or wrinkling. I’m just wondering if the sprays you are using have a higher water content.

  9. Have you ever tried Color Bloom Sprays by Prima? I have no idea what brand to purchase, I do mixed media on paper and canvas, I want solid color with a matte finish, what brand would you suggest?

  10. I haven’t tried Color Bloom…but the Plain Jane Chalkboard sprays by Tattered Angels are a solid color with matte finish. Hope this helps!

  11. Can you say which sprays are permanent when dried, have mica, AND you can put other stuff on top easily. Like brushing on Structure Gel, or pasting on stamped tissue, or gluing on embellishments, or spraying on something else? I’ve heard of Deco Arts Shimmer sprays, but there seems to be only 2 colours of these plus white: a pinky lilac plum colour and a turquoise. Not a great range!
    Help?

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Jenny Barnett Rohrs is Head Dummy and Pied Piper behind CTD, which focuses on reviews, tutorials, and craft industry news. Jenny has appeared on HSN, Scrapbook Soup PBS series, and is currently the co-host of Hands On Crafts for Kids on PBS.

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