[art] Fluid Painting

Was able to pour a few more fluid acrylic paintings last weekend.

First, I wanted a bright one with just white, red, yellow and blue:

That is my largest one to-date. I did two cups of colors and poured them across the canvas, rather than doing an upside-down pour. I love the large cells and bright colors.

Next, I tried an ocean-meets-beach pour:



I like it okay. Next time I might not add any of the oil to the browns- so it's not as dynamic as the blue/white. I swiped through the blue and used a straw to blow some of the white at the surf back onto the blue.

With the leftover colors, I just put them all into a cup and poured over a small canvas:



These "leftover" pours never disappoint, it seems. Not matter the color combo- it always looks interesting.

Oh, and one more planet:



These round ones are poured onto a wooden disks that are only 1/4 in thick. They kind of warp a bit as they dry. I have them all stacked up with a weight on top, trying to flatten them out. I would like to make them into clocks- but I will have to research more on clock mechanisms and frames.

The craft room is all tidied up and the paints and paintings have been put away:



Because we need the table for Thanksgiving dinner. Thank goodness I'm taking Wednesday off to prepare- 17 people are coming. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOGOG. It'll be fine. I'll just start drinking at noon. 

[art] Misc. Fluid Acrylic Pours

Still waiting for some of the paintings I poured last week to finish drying. Here are a few random ones:

I can hopefully spend some time this weekend cleaning and varnishing some.

Still knitting along on a new hat. I need to take some more pictures of things this afternoon...

[art] Fluid Acrylic Painting: Negative space and round form

One technique for pouring is to use negative space- areas that aren't covered with colored paint. You set up for a normal dirty cup pour but surround the upside down cup with white paint before lifting the colored cup. Then the edges blend together but there is still lots of "blank" space:

These blank areas aren't bare canvas- the are covered in white paint. I love this- would definitely like to try more like this.

I also ordered some round pieces of wood to make planets:

This was my first time using the swipe technique and it really saved this one. It was a jumbled up mess but the swipe kind of gave the colors direction and evened out the cells. And makes it look more planet-y.

Close-up:

After doing these paintings non-stop (NON. STOP.) for seven days, the novelty is starting to wear off and I'd like to try and be a bit more careful/thoughtful with how I mix and pour colors. I'm going to put away the paints, allow everything I've made to dry and then start cleaning/varnishing the finished pieces.

I've got plenty of knitting to keep me occupied in the meantime.

TGIF. No big plans for this weekend- just puttering around the house- maybe more sun prints since it's going to be sunny. Patriots on Sunday. 

[art] Fluid Acrylic Painting: Blues and leftover colors

It looks like this week is just going to be posts about my new acrylic pouring obsession. I'll go back to other stuff next week. For now, all I can think about is mixing pant.

Here's a 12 inch by 12 inch canvas with black and blues and white:

Close-up:

I like using fewer colors. I need to be less stingy with the paint I mix up to pour- If I have to move/tilt the canvas a lot for coverage, the cells lose their shape and the entire thing looks a little too mixed up.

But what to do when there's lots of little bits of leftover colors? Pour them all into a cup and use them:

Lots of areas of interest:

I tried a couple new techniques and forms, which I'll post tomorrow. Then it's back to regularly scheduled knitting and cats and food.

[art] Fluid Acrylic Painting: More better cells

The next fluid painting- I remembered to add the oil before pouring this time!- was a mix of white, red, yellow, gold, brown:

This canvas is 12 inches by 12 inches. I had enough leftover paint to pour another (same colors) onto a 8 inch by 10 inch canvas:

That little green splooch in the lower lefthand corner was because I accidentally dropped the wet canvas after the pour and it landed face down (Murphy's Law FTW) and got a little of the sea green from yesterday's pour on the corner.

Also had enough paint leftover that I was able to pour over five little wooden coaster squares:

The colors aren't too muddy. The cells are nice and distinct. I'm really happy with how these coasters turned out. They're small, so a good object for leftover paints.

Some close-ups:

So now I need to turn my mind to properly finishing these things. Cleaning, varnishing, framing. They're matte after the paint dries and I'd like to make them super shiny (to enhance the colors and bring out some of the metallic/glitter paints that I use). 

[art] Fluid Acrylic Painting: Sea green

Here's my third fluid acrylic pour:

This was after I got some necessary supplies. 

- Floetrol by Flood. You can get other art/craft flow aids from the craft store but this is much cheaper at $7 for a quart (or $13 for a gallon) from Home Depot. Mix this with paint to get it to flow better. It doesn't dilute the final paint color- it dries clear. It just helps with thinning and movement. This is also good because it saves how much actual paint you end up using.

- Butane torch. Like one of those little handheld guns that you can finish the top of a creme brulee with. This is to quickly sweep over the surface of the paint after it's poured to pop air bubbles and create more cells.

- Something that doesn't mix with water. Oil. Lubricant. Silicone. Dimethicone. Treadmill oil. Maybe sewing machine oil? You can easily get something that will work at the drug store: KY True Feel (Dimethicone), Astroglide X (Cyclomethicone, Dimethicone), OGX Coconut Hair Serum (many ingredients but dimethicone is the first).

I've been much happier since I started using the above. Then you just need acrylic paint, cups, stirrers, canvas. And something to keep the canvas elevated as the paint drips off and dries.

A ratio that seems to work well is: 2 parts floetrol, 1 part paint, 1 part water. Then depending on how much paint you're mixing up, you're really only going to want 1 - 3 drops of oil per color.

Here's a close-up:

These colors are kind of muddy because I mixed all the individual paints, poured them sequentially into a dump cup- and realized I forgot to add oil to each individual color first. Argh! So I dropped in 5 drops and kind of mixed it up before I poured. The colors are more blended than I wanted but I got some cells.

Tomorrow- I'll show my next projects- that have better cells and color distinction.

[art] Fluid Acrylic Painting: My new obsession

Fluid acrylic painting. Who knew. This is one of those things were I see a craft video and I'm like, "I have all that stuff. I'll try it." And I go home and try it and it's awesome. Apart from the first failed attempt to even mix the paint correctly. (Turns out I didn't have all the stuff I needed and I tried improvising with random home chemicals; I'm no chemist so all the paint turned into snot consistency which was pretty much the opposite of the nice, runny, fluid consistency that I needed.)

Anyway, here was my first real pour:

The paint was thick (only thinned with water) and I tried getting "cells" with a hair dryer. This really didn't work and it just ended up pushing the paint around the canvas.

From what I've gathered from my extensive history of researching this technique over the past, like, 5 days, the gist is that you mix paint and water (yes, I'm using plastic knives, I don't have Popsicle sticks):

Pour it in some color sequence into another cup and turn that cup upside down onto the canvas:

Lift up the cup:

Then tilt the canvas to cover the entire surface. Let excess paint drip off the sides and set it on something to keep it elevated while it dries.

All the colors blending and not blending and swirling make a totally unique picture with lots of visual interest:

I liked it. Obviously, it was my first time and it's not going to be amazing and ready to be hung in a gallery. I wanted cells, though, and you need to add some kind of lubricant to the paint (oil and water don't mix). I've seen people use treadmill oil, 3-in-1 household oil, KY or hair care products that contain dimethicone.

I wanted to try again, so I mixed up some different colors and added some WD-40 (what I had on hand). Made another dirty cup pour and this is the result:

I really like this one. There are more noticeable spots of cells from the WD-40:

There are many things that I learned just from doing these two small 8" x 10" painting. There are some special things that you do need (notably a paint flow aid and a torch). It's messy but a very fast process. I did a bunch more paintings over the weekend and will post them here throughout the week.