# Alcohol and acrylics abstract - possible for archival quality?



## Kaykay (Feb 26, 2014)

Hi everyone, new to the group, really into abstract art and contemporary expressionism and Impressionism. I love the look of dripping ethanol onto a wet acrylic glaze. It makes weird circles that remind me of cells under a microscope. I use this technique in my own paintings, but I assumed it would eventually make the painting start to deteriorate over time. I sell paintings locally, but I also love looking at art online, and the other day I noticed one of my favourite abstract artists was using this alcohol technique and selling these paintings for hundreds of dollars. So what I'm wondering is if there is a way to seal the painting (would a varnish work?) or "deactivate" the alcohol so to speak once it's dried or anything I can do to make these paintings sellable (I wouldn't want to sell a painting that would deteriorate in a few years. I'd like them to be well preserved). Or maybe alcohol wouldn't deteriorate it at all? I know acid does, so I just assumed ...

Thank you in advance!


----------



## RWMcRae (Apr 24, 2014)

Do you have an example of what you're talking about?

Alcohol evaporates very quickly, so after a few seconds to a minute it's going to stop affecting your materials in any way. What it _may _do is damage your materials in a way that causes them to degrade faster, but it's not going to keep acting on your materials. So you'd protect them in the same way you'd protect them without using alcohol on them.


----------



## mcfearless (Mar 25, 2014)

Kaykay said:


> Hi everyone, new to the group, really into abstract art and contemporary expressionism and Impressionism. I love the look of dripping ethanol onto a wet acrylic glaze. It makes weird circles that remind me of cells under a microscope. I use this technique in my own paintings, but I assumed it would eventually make the painting start to deteriorate over time. I sell paintings locally, but I also love looking at art online, and the other day I noticed one of my favourite abstract artists was using this alcohol technique and selling these paintings for hundreds of dollars. So what I'm wondering is if there is a way to seal the painting (would a varnish work?) or "deactivate" the alcohol so to speak once it's dried or anything I can do to make these paintings sellable (I wouldn't want to sell a painting that would deteriorate in a few years. I'd like them to be well preserved). Or maybe alcohol wouldn't deteriorate it at all? I know acid does, so I just assumed ...
> 
> Thank you in advance!


Is there any chance that you could upload images of your paintings? I would love to see them?


----------

