52 Weeks of Art: Week 12

Week 12: Acrylic Pouring

Welcome to week 12 of 52 weeks of art! What are we doing this week?

          Well, we're on to week 12 of this art adventure. Wow! I can't believe it's been 12 weeks already! That's nearly 1/4th of the way over with! Our art adventure took us to acrylic pouring this week. I have never done anything like this before. And, I'm going to be totally honest here, I never really wanted to do acrylic pouring. I always kind of looked at it like it was more of a craft than an art. I know! I am so sorry to all you acrylic pouring artists out there! This is more than just a craft. There really is some art to it. It's not just pouring some paint onto a canvas and letting it do its thing. It is so much more complicated than that!

I found this beautiful piece here.

The colorful creation was found here.

     Since I knew pretty much nothing about acrylic pouring, I headed to the internet! Thank you, Google for finding all the answers I needed. I found several sites that talked about how to do pouring. I honestly had no idea there was so much! You need a pouring medium, some silicone, some water, some paint (obviously), canvas, cups (so MANY cups), etc.

     The pouring medium, at least from what I researched, can be as cheap as using some Elmer's glue to using some fancy made-for-acrylic-pouring medium. I went with somewhere in between. I got some Floertol. It's used for house paint. It was MUCH cheaper than the fancy stuff. And, since I have never done any acrylic pouring before, I have no idea of the quality of it. I read that some people swear by the Floertol, others only use the fancy stuff. Everyone seems to have a completely different recipe for their pours.

      Another thing to add to the paint mixture is some silicone oil. It appears that the most commonly used oil is treadmill oil. Weird? I thought so. But, what do I know? I don't know anything about fluid art. A good substitute for the treadmill oil just so happens to be some coconut hair treatment that I happened to already own. Yay! 

    Alright, so, you've gathered up all your supplies, what now?

My supplies. All ready to begin.

     Here we've got the paint all mixed up. I used approximately (because I am terrible at actually measuring anything) 1 part paint, 1 part water, 1 part Floetrol, and a few drops of the coconut hair oil. I also used some plastic spoons to mix it all up because they fell out of the cupboard when I opened the door.

So much paint! 

     I took a tiny little cup - Solo makes some pretty great tiny cups, I'm pretty sure they are shot glasses, but I think they work pretty great for so many other things - I poured small amounts of different colors of paint into the cup and here we go! Paint poured all over the place.

My first pour! 

     I highly recommend that you make sure you are doing your pouring over SOMETHING that will catch all the paint that drips off. I just used some foil pans that I happened to have laying around the house. I keep saying I have these things laying around the house. They're actually put away. Most of the time. I love these foil pans. They can be used for just about anything and you can get sets of them at the dollar store. I love the dollar store.

Here is a "set" of paintings I did. I poured the paint over two canvases. 

     The Little one did some acrylic pouring as well. She had so much fun with this. Here's some paintings that she did. There are more, but these were my favorites.

The Little One did some acrylic pouring of her own.

     Here are the finished pieces all dried. It took HOURS for them to dry. I had to try to find some safe place in my house where no one would bump into them and get wet paint all over themselves - or the house. Not an easy task. One thing I noticed about these pours is that they were constantly changing. As the paint dripped off the edges the whole thing changed and created new patterns.

   

     

On to rating acrylic pouring...

     Just a reminder on the criteria for rating each medium.

Ease of use: How easy was this medium to use.

Affordability: How affordable supplies are for each medium.

Accessibility: How easily accessible supplies are for each medium. Example, are specific tools required that are hard to find?

Fun to Use: How much enjoyment I got out of using this medium

     So, for acrylic pouring, my rating is: 19

Ease of use: 5

    I don't think this could have possibly been any easier. The most difficult part was just stirring up the paint mixtures.

Affordability: 4

     Acrylic paint can be expensive, and if you plan on using a large canvas, you're gonna need a lot of paint. But you don't have to use the most expensive paints, you can go with the cheaper brands. The medium can be from just a few dollars to $40+. So, depending on what you're planning to do it could add up. 

Accessibility: 5

     Acrylic paints can be found just about anywhere. If you use glue as your medium, that can also be found anywhere. If you go with the Floetrol, that can be found at a hardware store. If you don't want to GO shopping, you can just buy everything online. In case you haven't noticed by now, I am a HUGE fan of buying online.

Fun to Use: 5

     This is much more fun to do than I thought it would be. I thought it would be just kind of meh. But it wasn't, it was exciting to see how the paints would mix and make different patterns. It was fun to watch as the painting would change slightly as if continued to move and flow around the canvas before it dried.

     If you would like to go on this epic art adventure with me, next week we will be doing...

     If you choose to follow along, please post your work using #52weekartadventure!