Acrylic Pour Painting

A couple of years ago my amazing sister-in-law, Laurie Slater, started doing acrylic pouring and our house is slowly being covered in her amazing artwork. Both of my kids have "Aunt Laurie" walls for pieces she's created for them.

She introduced me to the magic of acrylic pouring videos on Instagram years ago and I spent way too much time watching all the beautiful pieces evolve. (and using some of them as hair color inspiration) It's always something I've wanted to try, but I've never had the space or the time to figure out exactly how to do it. So this month I headed over to her place and she let me and my son play with paint.

https://twitter.com/lsopourers

This time jumping in was less nerve racking than normal. Having an expert with you helps when you run into pit falls as you're bound to do with new projects. It was helpful asking her questions before I did something, even if her answer was "I dunno" and a laugh. Sometimes knowing that you're not the only clueless one helps chase away the imposter syndrome.

Since I was at someone else's house, I didn't shout "I have no idea what I'm doing" I whispered it like a prayer before I poured my first bit of paint.

Setting up the canvas involved taping off the back and adding pushpins at the corners so the canvas is raised and the paint has somewhere to drip to.

Then you cover the front of the canvas with the base color. I used white, but my son used black, so here's a photo of the black so it's easier to see.

First thing I learned, just covering a canvas is way harder than it would seem. I mean yeah, you can spread it out, but you have to try to make it even as well. You don't want a giant puddle of paint that dries slower than the rest of the canvas.

Also you have to watch out for bubbles. If you create any you have to make sure to pop them. I suggested using a toothpick and Laurie's response was "If you want to be here all day." and then she pulled out a blowtorch. I was there for the blowtorch action.

I knew you could use a blowtorch or a butane torch in acrylic pouring to create cells, but apparently you can also use it to pop bubbles in the paint. Who knew?

I started with an open cup pour, which got it's name from originally being done with a Solo cup with the bottom cut off. Laurie actually recommends using cookie cutters, they come in different shapes and sizes so you're not locked into the giant circle shape that the Solo cup offers.

It did not go well.

Maybe it would be better to say that it didn't look anything like (a) anything Laurie does or (b) anything I've seen on Instagram. Instead it looked kind of like a sad puddle of paint (you can see the sad puddle at this point in the video). Which was pretty disappointing.

But I didn't give up! I poured more paint and used an airbrush to spread the paint. This gave me more control (which, Laurie told me it would, so I don't know why I didn't just listen to her in the first place). It also allowed me to add more paint and spread it to fill in spaces that came out empty after the failed open cup pour.

The final step? Glitter. I used both hands for my glitter so here's a super satisfying slow mo of my son adding glitter to their painting:

And then we left them to dry and Laurie will finish them with a layer or two of varnish. Of course we got photos before we left.

Wanna see the whole process speed up to just under 2 minutes? Check out the video. Fair warning, a good half of it is me pouring white paint on a white canvas while I try to figure out how to spread it evenly.

Fly or flop?

I'm giving myself a fly/flop. Yes the piece turned out great (fly), but it wasn't quite what I wanted (flop). Don't get me wrong, I love it. But the disconnect between what I wanted and what came out ended up being disappointing. Knowing myself, it would happen every time I created something as you can't really control the paint. So I'm going to leave the professional acrylic pouring to Laurie and just hire her when I need some new art for my walls.

We do have a whole new basement with some pretty blank walls.

Til next month; take chances, make mistakes, get messy!Carin

When you're jumping in to something new you're going to make mistakes. Learning how to pivot when you run into a road block is an immeasurable skill. I've been watching my kids learn this skill and getting them over the "It's all a disaster! There's nothing I can do! I'm just going to give up!" has reminded me that it's not an easy skill to learn.

So when you make a mistake remember to take a deep breath and look at the product from a different angle to figure out if you can salvage anything or if you really do need to throw it all away and start again.

Like the newsletter? Have ideas? Wanna share a story about something you dove into recently? Reply and let me know! I'm always up for new things to try.

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