Paint Pouring : Supplies and Substitutions in Fluid Acrylic

1. Welcome to Pouring Pitfalls 3: Hello friends, welcome back to my Skillshare channel. My name is Brenda Dunn and I go online by Art in Jest. If we've not met before, you've found yourself in part 3 of my three-part pouring pitfalls series. If you'd like, you can go ahead and check out Part 1, all about color choices. It a little bit of color theory, part 2, all about panhandling and how to get more cells and interesting pores. Or you can hang out here and start with Part 3, which is supplied groups. And we used to do paint pouring on the cheap in the middle and super expensive, if that sounds fun to you, stick around. 2. Materials and Alternatives: For this class, there are a lot of different materials that you can choose from. What I'm actually going to be doing in this session is comparing more artist grade art supplies with some of the less expensive alternatives that you can start with. If you'd like to pour along with me, I'd encourage using whatever painting supplies you have on hand. I'm going to give you a few examples of some of the things that we can use in pain worse. And if this is your first time ever trying fluid acrylic, you might want to check out a fluid acrylic 101 class just to get a sense of the process, I'll link a couple of options in the class description. But for now we're going to run over a few of the alternatives and options for less expensive supplies. So to start on the less expensive end of the supplies spectrum, I have a couple of very inexpensive bottles of craft paint. The craft paint that I'm using, I think I got it. My local Dollar Store doesn't matter what brand it is, just make sure that you get something that is acrylic paint. Ideally, if all three are the same brand, that's helpful, but especially when you're first starting out, don't feel like I have to use your fancy paint. The thing that matters is that it's more of a liquid type paint as opposed to those really thick paints that come out of a tube sorted, I end up that consistency of toothpaste. Just get the cheap stuff. You can also start with small bottles like this, which usually means that you're only spending a dollar or two on your paints for colors, especially to start off, keep in mind that if you just get the primaries of these paints, you have access to any color that you want. But if you wanted to skip the color mixing process or if that's not something that's super familiar to you, you may just want to start off with a couple of nice high contrast colors and white to mixin, if you'd like to learn a little bit more about color choices and color theory. You can check out Part 1 in this series, which will the class description. Also, I'm going to use a small canvas for this particular project. And it's a good idea to have a bunch of little four by six or five by seven canvasses on hands. We do this because especially with less expensive supplies, there's a little bit more trial and error. So investing in a big canvas can make it feel a little bit intimidating and it can make mistakes feel a little more high-stakes. Rather than getting yourself psyched out before you even start, get a whole bunch of small four by six canvases so that you can do 10 different pores with your less expensive supplies without feeling like you've wasted your paint or your time. I also have three, ten fluid ounce cups, which are the same size we've been using for all of these tutorials. A couple of stir sticks so that I can mix paint with mediums and then have a couple of household duties for what is commonly used to and act as silicone in fluid acrylic. I'm going to be using the baby oil and a little bit of the dish. So these are both really common substitutions that you can try out in your pores if you don't want to invest in silicone. It's also something that you might just have sitting around the house. So especially early on, grab a couple of these. If you don't have them, just skip the silicone step altogether. You can still get really interesting pores without it. If you want to talk a little bit more about how silicone works to create cells. You can check out section two of this three-part series, all about paint handling and how to get more interesting pores. 3. Mixing in Mediums: To replicate the exact same process on both sides of the supplies spectrum. I'm going to take my less expensive paints and I'm going to go through the exact same process that I did mixing my more expensive fluid acrylics. If you want to see the process for these paints, you can check out section two of my fluid acrylics class, which has a wool part about paint handling, getting the right ratios back kind of thing. For now, what we're going to try to do is replicate the exact same process. So I have less expensive paint. Then I'm going to squeeze into one of my fluid acrylic cups. And you can see that this paint is already pretty runny and has a decently thin consistency, but it is a little bit thicker than an actual fluid acrylics. Now, this is the point where I do recommend if you're going to invest in one thing from this side of the supply table. Go for pouring medium if you just get the biggest bottle of this. Some people also use flow trawl. You can actually use much less expensive paint and get very similar results. Some people will use a mixture of glue occasionally and water. Some people will just use water exclusively. And this can work to increase the viscosity, the thickness of your paint. But what it also does is break down what holds your paint together. So the binding agents in paint that keep the color mixed in with the medium will actually start to break apart and it can desaturate your paint. Make it a lot lighter in color, which also makes it a lot harder to control. So rather than doing that today, I'm going to use the one thing that I would strongly recommend in any poor, which is just a little bit of the pouring medium. These aren't super expensive and similar to the paint. They usually come in a few different and sizes. But I'm going to strongly recommend, if at all possible, go with a little bit of porn medium, even if you're using less expensive paint. What I'm gonna do is take a healthy couple of tablespoons of my porn medium, and I'm going to dump it right into this cheap Dollar Store paint. And you can see that it looks a little bit like glue. And what I want to make sure I do is completely integrate all of this UI blue medium into the paint. If you want to see a bit more of an in-depth explanation as to why we do such vigorous stirring and why we want to make sure it's completely integrated again and check back section 2 of this class. But for now, I'm just storing it in making sure that I have it completely integrated into this tube of paint. I'm also going to do the stick test where I just make sure that it moves off my stick. And I get a little bit of that drip Venus, we're looking for something between dish soap and honey inconsistency just to make sure that we actually get some movement when we put it on the canvas. I'm going to repeat this step for all three colors. And then we're going to be reading for our side-by-side poor. 4. Selecting a Surface: So one of the other ways that you can cut some costs, especially early on, is on your paint surfaces. So this is a very inexpensive little canvas. You can get multi packs of these that any discounts store. Also, most art supply stores will have a section of student grade quality campuses. They're pretty cheap. You can get a whole bunch and smaller sizes are great for experimenting with less expensive supplies so that you can work out color combinations and try different techniques again without being intimidated by that bureau of the big blank canvas. So grab a bunch of these. The other thing that can be really helpful when you're first starting out is using existing canvases. So keep in mind painful cover paint pretty easily if you a little Candace that you've been doing pellet tests on, if you've got a painting or a poor maybe that you weren't super-happy where you can actually use fluid acrylic right on top of that. And it'll stick pretty easily. If the surface has been really heavily varnished, you might want to just take some steel wool and scuff up the surface a little bit before your poor just so the paint has something to stick to. But it goes small and get a bunch of so that you don't have to be worried about playing around with your poor. 5. Side by Side Paint Comparison: For our comparison test, I'm going to take this inexpensive paint and I'm going to pour color number 2 into cup number 1. Now we talked a little bit about this in my previous class, but I'm going to use the exact same technique where I'm drizzling a nice thin line of paint so that I can try to maintain a bit of separation between the colors. And you can see, even with this pretty inexpensive craft paint, because it's been mixed with a decent quality media. The movement is actually very similar to what you would get with the higher quality fluid acrylic. So I'm gonna take my second color with my fancier flows acrylic. And I'm going to repeat the exact same process on this side. So just a nice thin line obtain from a bit of a height. And one of the things you can do to spot check that you've got enough medium in there. It's just see ideally, if color number 2 is kind of sitting on top of color number 1 is easier to do if you've got clear. But only gonna do is integrate those first two colors. And really inside the cups, they're looking pretty similar. Nothing really crazy different about them, at least not yet. 6. Silicone and Alternatives: The next thing that I'm going to do with both sides of the supply spectrum is try out a cell booster. So on the more expensive side, I am going to use the silicone. This is supposed to act as a barrier between my paint is going to hold paint away from pain, which is something that helps with the appearance to cells. The other things that can do this that you might have just sitting around in your home are things like baby oil as long as ideally it's uncentered and uncolored. Or dish though. If your dish though, a color or a tint to it, you might notice a slight effect of that in your poor. So just something to keep in mind. And what I'm gonna do is put just one or two little drops of dish soap in there. And it's actually going to act in place of the silicone and just hold that paint away from paint. Now I'm putting this in after Heller number 2 in both of these cups. And I'm going to use equal amounts so that I can use color number 3 to integrate it into the rest of the mix without having disturbed what's in the cup because I want to maintain the separation between my colors. So same thing with my lesson of paints. I'm just going to drizzle color number 3 from a bit of a height so that I have all three colors mixed into one cup. And I'm going to try to puncture that surface of dish soap so that I send it through the mixture. Exactly the same way I would treat the silicone. If you want to get a little more in depth about silicone and how it works. You can check out section two of this three-part series. But for now, the thing that matters is just a nice thin line of paint kinda delicately from a bit of a height. That ideally, at the end of this process, I have two cups, each with two colors, then a bit of silicone or silicone substitutes. And then finally, a little drizzle of color number 3. If I'm delicate with this, there should be a little bit of separation between the colors. And if I look at the size of the copy, should be able to see a little bit about. 7. Cup Flip with Costly supplies: Now we're going to go through the process of flipping a cup on each of these canvases, I have the exact same mess attaching setup where I've got one of these little tin foil trays. I have both of my canvases elevated on one of these hubs that I'm not using just so that the runoff goes into the tray instead of all over my work surface. So we're going to start with the fancier end of things. I'm actually going to pour this right on top of this little palette tests just to demonstrate that what I'm going to do is flip the canvas upside down on top of the cap, turn the whole thing over, set it back down carefully onto my canvas or onto my cup rather. Tap on the button. I should also mention that this is kind of your last opportunity to put on gloves. If you don't want to paint on your hands. It's just acrylic paints, so it's helping or hurting. But some people would prefer not to have a subtotal over them. So if you've got some dish gloves that works great. Work gloves are a little hard to work with. Or again, if you have access to a sink really nearby and go ahead, get your hands dirty. It's boundary similar to the last two sections. I'm just going to tap jet links on the bottom of the cup, just so that I can move all this pretty paint from the bottom of the cup onto my canvas. And then after I've tapped for a while longer than I find it interesting to tap on the button backup. I'm going to go ahead and click it straight up and let it roll off the edges of my canvas, drip down onto the surface. And then once I've got some paint on there, I got a tip and tilt and stretch all that beautiful paint all around the edges of this cube low Canvas. Trying to keep some of the cool stuff in the middle if I can. But letting go of expectations if I can't, because after all, it's acrylic. And once I've got the majority of the surface covered, you can see this stuff moves really quickly. There are a number of cells that popped up in this pore. The whole thing looks really cool. I can touch the little corners, get a little edges. So there's the fancy supplies. Now I'm just going to swap out my glyphs. And we're going to try the exact same process with the cheap stuff. 8. Cup Flip with Cheaper supplies: So exact same thing over here on the cheaper side of the table. I'm going to take this concept, take the canvas, flip it upside down and make a firm seal on the back of the canvas with my hand for the whole thing over and tap on the button that says the other argument for using smaller Canvases, especially if you're trying a couple of different color palettes or you want to go through a few tips at once. It's a lot easier to hold these little canvases up in the air. And I'm going to tap and tap on the button at the top and just move as much of that pain from the back of the cup onto the Canvas account. And then when I've done that true hunger, then I feel like tapping a little bit of a cup. I'm going to go ahead and pick up the whole thing and we're going to see. So again, super interesting, super foam core. And as you can see, we still have lots of movement in that reads still really easy to roll it around the periphery of the canvas. And just with a little bit of dish though, we still have tons of cells. So keep in mind, all of the supplies used on this Canvas probably costs maybe $10 total, that's Canadian dollar. And none of it was particularly hard to get your hands on. So we're just going to take a look at these two side-by-side and talk a little bit about some of the differences in handling and how it might impact your choices. And you're going to start it with fluid and collect. 9. Side by Side Comparison: So one thing to notice about the less expensive supplies is that flux because the paint is already been thinner. It moves a little bit quicker. That's not bad because it makes it easier to cover your canvas. But keep in mind, especially when you're starting out, it can be a little bit nerve wracking when you pick up that cup and you get that flood of paint. So these Spirit was how much paint you put in the top. And you shouldn't have too much of a problem. It'll also give you a little more time to roll that shape of paint around on your surface. But also if you want it to be a little bit thicker again, you can use your medium to try to mitigate the texture where the thickness of your paint. Over here on the more expensive side, you can see we probably got very comparable amounts of cells. I do want to point out that this is somewhat random on a different day with the exact same supplies, the outcome might have been reversed, but just keep in mind that even with that super lovely silicone, it doesn't necessarily give you any more cells. Then a couple of drops of something like dish soap. 10. Treating your Surface post-pour: So one of the other ways that you can cut some costs, especially early on, is on your paint surfaces. So this is a very inexpensive little canvas. You can get multi packs of these that any discounts store. Also, most art supply stores will have a section of student grade quality campuses. They're pretty cheap. You can get a whole bunch and smaller sizes are great for experimenting with less expensive supplies so that you can work out color combinations and try different techniques again without being intimidated by that bureau of the big blank canvas. So grab a bunch of these. The other thing that can be really helpful when you're first starting out is using existing canvases. So keep in mind painful cover paint pretty easily if you a little Candace that you've been doing pellet tests on, if you've got a painting or a poor maybe that you weren't super-happy where you can actually use fluid acrylic right on top of that. And it'll stick pretty easily. If the surface has been really heavily varnished, you might want to just take some steel wool and scuff up the surface a little bit before your poor just so the paint has something to stick to. But it goes small and get a bunch of so that you don't have to be worried about playing around with your poor. 11. Extra Tips and Tricks: Now that we have these two beautiful pores, Let's talk about a couple of other ways that you can add some interests or expand your pouring roster using some pretty inexpensive tools. One of the things that you can do if you'd like to have a bit more of an impact on your surface is take things like a straw and just try blowing the paint around, hopping some of the bubbles on the surface, things like that can be super fun to play around with. Also, if you don't cover the entire surface of our canvas, you can use a strophe, push your breath through the paint to actually get it to travel over the surface of the canvas. Experimenting with those techniques can also be a really good thing to do with less expensive supplies, because it gives you the freedom to try out a few things without being too attached to the outcome. Now when I was building these classes, I asked people who had taken my workshops what questions they had for me. And Shannon asked a really good question about how to avoid cracking and crazy on the surface of the paintings. This can happen especially with less expensive paint like I mentioned. So one of the things that you might wanna do is just upgrade a little bit to the next level of quality in your fluid acrylic paint. But also keep in mind, if you prefer, you can just seal. You're painting with some burnish at the end. This is a really great way to smooth out the surface. Also sometimes that can occur if you put your painting in a place to dry and the temperature changes dramatically. So wherever possible, leave your painting exactly where it is after you've poured it and just let it air dry. So on the subject of moving around paint, Sandra had actually asked about some masking techniques are ways to get your paint to go where you want it to go. So if you want to try having a bit more of an impact on where the paint goes on the surface. Things like masking fluid or painter's tape. Some people will also use a really light line of a hot glue gun to make little barriers so that the paint will only go on certain places on the canvas. You can also use things like a heat gun, a hairdryer, or the straw technique to try to push your paint around on the surface. But I would recommend trying a few pours before you pull out those tools. Again, just to see if you can get a bit of a feel for how quickly your paint moves before you put it on the Canvas. The last question that I got on this subject was from Colleen, who asked a little bit more about how to separate colors or make sure that you use colors without having them completely integrate together. And using a poor over technique can be a really great way to keep your colors completely separate. So people will often use household items like a colander, a sieve, even the top of a pop bottle. And if you set it down on your canvas and drizzle individual colors onto the tool. It will actually just push the paint out onto the canvas. And you can use that as a way to keep your colors totally separate. Rather than the dirty pour method where all of the paint goes into one cup before it goes onto the canvas. All of those are great ways to just help move your paint around. The other thing that you might want to consider is that in a lot of videos you'll see people use things like a heat gun or a blow torch, pop bubbles on the surface. This can be as super cool technique, but it's also really easy to scorch the surface of your paint or crack it by using too much heat. So especially early on, I actually typically recommend skipping the heat gun altogether. Try a few pores and just let them dry naturally because the other thing that will bring air and bubbles and interests to the surface is time. And if you can just walk away from your painting and let it sort of naturally breathe for a little while. It's going to do some amazing things for you and you won't run the risk of scorching the surface and cracking your painting. 12. Class Project: For your class project, grab a couple of smaller campuses and try one or more of these inexpensive Hadoop's. If you'd like to use some of your higher-quality fluid acrylic, maybe try throwing in baby oil or dish soap instead of silicone. If you're using cheaper paint, try mixing it with an actual prey medium to see what effect it has. I recommend doing a few pieces with duped on smaller surfaces just so that you can see the impact that they're having on your core. Remember to post your projects in the project section so that I can have a look. And if you have any questions at all about different supplies or materials that you're using? Don't hesitate to send them to me. And I cannot wait to see what you guys make and lake you so much for watching this three-part series on quarrying and false.