Acrylic pouring is a simple technique that can create elaborate paintings to hang around your home. The best part is its a fun activity you can involve your friends and family during quarantine.
What you’ll need
1. Acrylic paint (preferable cheap): my favorite paint for acrylic pours is called Craft Smart as it already is real cheap (50 cents per bottle) and watered down paint you can find at Walmart. Make sure to pick the colors you want to have in your painting.
2. Fluid or spreading medium: My favorite brand to use is flood floetrol. Spreading media is very important to have as it helps to water down the paint without compromising its viscosity or color.
3. Stretched canvas: the bigger the better make sure your canvas is stretch over a wooden frame so it is easy to hang up afterword
4. Silicone: the easiest way to get silicone is the use of treadmill lubricant. The silicone allows for the large cells or circles in the painting.
5. Plastic Cups and Popsicle sticks: to hold and mix the paint
6. Modge Podge: to seal the painting
Prep
1. Get out the same amount cups as the amount of paint you have: for example, 4 colors = 4 cups
2. Pour out enough paint to fill about an 1/8th of the cup for each cup
3. Dilute the paint with a little bit of water to give it a bit of a fluid consistency
4. Add in the floetrol to about 1/3 to 1/4 of each cup depending on the size of the canvas
5. Mix together the floetrol, paint, and water in each cup with your popsicle stick.
6. Add about three drops of silicon to each cup. You can mix less or more depending on the size you want your cells. The more you mix the smaller the cells. P.s mix with the popsicle stick.
7.Whatever you want your main canvas color to pour all the other colors in that single cup. For example, if your main color is white you want to pour each other color mix into that cup ( the one with white) don’t mix them together with the popsicle stick.
8. Set up your canvas on top of a disposable tablecloth or garbage bag and place cups under the canvas so that paint will run over the canvas as it drives.
The different kinds of pours:
Regular pour: Taking your cup and just pouring your mixture on the canvas. Tilting canvas around and letting paint rin down the sides before leaving it to dry for a few days.
Dirty pour: Pick up your canvas and flip it over. Place cup with mixture’s opening on the white part of the canvas. Quickly flip the canvas over tilt if needed to allow paint run of the sides and set the canvas on cups so it can dry for a few days.
Circle pour: Take a cup with the mixture and pour paint on canvas in circular motions. Don’t tilt it will mess up your pattern leave canvas on cups to dry for a couple days.
Final steps
– After a few days apply a glossy mod podge to seal the painting from the outside elements and add a glossy finish. Finally, your painting will be ready to hang around your house. I really enjoyed acrylic pouring in this stressful time when many are stuck at home and finding out how different color combinations go together is always interesting. Don’t forget if you don’t like your painting turned out to wait for it dry and do the whole process over again on the same canvas!