Product Review - Block Ink Medium

I'm still searching for a block ink to use on fabric. The only one available seems to be the Speedball Fabric Block Ink and although this works well the nearest stockist I can find is in Melbourne, about 3,500km away! It's also about twice as expensive in Australia as in the USA.

I recently saw this block ink medium by Derivan. It's made in Australia and is reasonably priced.  You can use the medium to turn acrylic paints into block inks. I've already been using their block colours on paper and fabric that won't be washed. However they are not totally washable and the colour fades as shown in the test sample below.

Seeing as acrylic doesn't wash out of fabric very easily I thought I'd try this medium for making block ink. The packet says a ratio of 50:50 medium to paint. It really does depend on what paint you are using. It needs to be quite heavy body to start with or you'll need more than 50% medium to achieve the right texture. Overall the medium mixed with acrylic worked well and lost only a little colour with washing. When textile medium was also added the colour was virtually unchanged. However adding textile medium made the ink more runny meaning that more block medium was needed.

Here are some lino prints I made using the medium mixed with orange acrylic.

I tried the medium with acrylics on the Gelli® plate but I found it was a bit sticky and didn't show the comb marks well. Perhaps I need to add a bit less medium.

I was struck with the idea that mixing dye powder with the medium might work for fabric. I had some soda soaked fabric ready to print on. I mixed the powder with a blob of the block medium and it looked great and rolled onto the lino block and printed really well. However the results were disappointing as most of the dye washed out.