A second round of tile pour painting

6×6 with a floral motif

A darker forest 4×4

I tried to be a bit more subtle yet directed with these next tile pour paintings.  I went away from all primary colors and white to purple and green in the smaller one.  To me, it suggests a deep forest with a creek running through it.

For the larger tile, I was going for a more floral theme.  There is a way to manipulate the poured paint with a string and I tried it here.  I kind of messed up with the initial pull so it looks more like a vase with a flower, but I still ended up liking it.  I then added two flower shapes around the vase/flower with a more correct string pull.

This is fun and I plan to make more of them in the future.

Pour painting on canvas

Dirty pour

It’s called a dirty pour when you layer all of your colors into one pouring cup and then dump it all at once onto the art surface.  And that’s what I did for this one.  When I finished the tiles shown previously, I had a few ounces of each prepared color left over, so I put them all in one covered cup to store until my next class.  When I came back the next week, I proceeded to pour the whole cup onto the center of an 8×10 canvas and watch what happened as I tilted it back and forth until the paint mostly covered the surface.  By my good luck, there was just enough to reach most of the edges and spill over the sides.  Pretty interesting, huh.  You have less control over the color positioning this way (although you do have the option of what order colors are put into the cup and thus come out) but you can still manipulate the flow somewhat with popsicle sticks, straws, or a palette knife.

After it dried, I started painting the small amount of white space left on the edges and the top with the dark blue I had used to unify the canvas.  If you look closely, you can see it is almost done.  There is a small amount on the lower edge and the left side to finish.

As you will see, the next pours on tile were a bit more purposeful, but still had a wonderful unpredictableness about them.  I don’t do much abstract work, but this is pretty interesting and I might enjoy it as a change of pace from the more detailed pen and watercolor work.

 

Something new from my acrylic class – Pour painting

6×6 tile

4×4 tile

I am taking this new acrylic class mostly to find out about the varieties of acrylics currently available and what additional mediums and varnishes are being used.  There hasn’t been much emphasis on realistic work, but I am still happy with all the new things I have learned.

We moved from the Gelli plates to pour painting, something I had barely for even heard of before, much less tried for myself.  You put acrylic paint into a fluid medium, add a small amount of silicon, and then pour it over a substrate like canvas or commercial tile.  Some artists use it over built up mixed media, too.  The paint is rather like a thick lotion you pour onto your surface, but dries completely flat.  As the different color mix, the silicon helps them form into various shapes due to different specific gravities for each color.  You can do some manipulation to guide the formations, but I am rather limited at this point in my technique.  For these, I just poured 4 different colors on a 4″ and 6″ tile and then tilted them back and forth until the paints mixed and moved out to the edges.  Don’t ask me about the chemistry involved.  I rather like my first efforts, but I know there is a lot of experimentation to be done.  I am already happier with the pieces I have subsequently worked on.  Youtube pour painting and you will see some pretty incredible things.