Secret Tricks to Pouring Acrylic Painting Techniques

1. Preview Acrylic Pouring Techniques: a very popular technique used with acrylic painting is called pouring. Maybe you've heard of it, but basically it's a very simple thing. We can apply paint with a brush we can apply, prayed with a knife, weaken, squeeze out paint from the tube. But now that we have these more fluid pains, we can actually pour them out of containers. And I'm gonna pour it on there. And if I mixed these up just slightly to get the alcohol in there and pour it over it, look at how they swim around. You could see why I'm using this tray with aluminum foil, and there's lots of ways to do this and then I'll just pour it over it, then put the drops on and then move it in and around. 2. Pouring Chapter 1 Introduction, Preparation, Supplies: a very popular technique used with acrylic painting is called pouring. Maybe you've heard of it, but basically it's a very simple thing. We can apply paint with a brush. We can apply, praying with a knife. We can squeeze out paint from the tube. But now that we have these more fluid pains, we can actually pour them out of containers and so usually pour them onto our palate. But what if we just poured them right directly onto our painting surface? And so this is what his new craze is dealing with is using paints and pour them directly onto your surface. Once they're there, they're not going to move very much because the fluid still are pretty substantial. But you could then manipulate them with a brush or a knife. And if we go to the high flow paints, which are the former airbrush colors, they have a little ball in them, and they're very, very thin. They're not very diluted with water. They're just using a thin polymer, and if you see, I can pour these out and they start to move around. So by using the fluid in the high flow, you could get some interesting effects by pouring. Now, let's go a little further into this because there's some interesting tips and tricks that I'd like to show you. So this presentation is on pouring techniques using acrylic, and we're filming this Live at Artisan in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I want to start by thanking the staff and owners of Artisan. They are truly amazing and wonderful to work with, and I've been working with them for I think it's been 20 years now started teaching life drawing in their Canyon Road store, so I really, really I'm bond of everyone here. I also want to thank Golden artist colors for all the products that I'll be using today and also ampersand art supply, who was generous to give me panels, and we'll be talking about how, when you're pouring, you really do need a sturdy surface. So it was helpful to have all these ampersand panels to work on. Though pouring is basically, um, taking something that's fluid and pouring. There's a poor, and basically it's applying paint or acrylic in a without using tools without using brushes or knives. And that's it. It's pretty simple. So now you can go home because no, actually, there's a lot of tricks and tips that I'd like to tell you, so that you don't waste a lot of products and get you can get a perfect you know, look, with a lot of the tips I'll be talking about today. Talk about products and tools that are helpful. I mentioned the ampersand panels and I I I have poured done. I have created poor techniques on canvas, but what happens is that, um, when you pour it on canvas, it sinks down canvases flexible. You have to prop it up. That's not a bad thing. But here's why. I don't use canvas anymore. Is that if you prop it up and you stick cardboard and all kinds of things and you get it nice and level, then you pour. It has to sit there for a day or two, and that might be your main working area. So I liked panels because I can move them around easily. One side pour it there just a little easier to work with. So here's some panels from ampersand one. Is this Jess aboard? This is flat, and this has a cradle to it. These are really easy to use because you can hang them up, and also they come up off of the off of the table little bit. These boards are already staying sealed and primed, and I didn't realize they were stained sealed. But I took one of these to prove to you a stain. What a stain looks like. And here is one. So this side has a stain sealer underneath the Jess. Oh, and this side does not. And I put paste here and a gel here, and you could see this yellowing happening here. What's happening is it's not the acrylic that is turning yellow. I guess it's kind of a semantic thing, but it's the acrylic is acts like a vacuum cleaner, and it pulls impurities from the substrate into it. And the more acrylic you put on a surface, the more this yellowing happens. So if you're working really thinly, you may never see this. But when you start pouring, you're getting thicker layers and you will instantly see. I think they call it staying in juice discoloration. Golden calls it that when you put acrylic on a substrate canvas maze tonight, anything that has water soluble impurities so acid free doesn't matter if you don't put a stain sealer first. Uh, it will turn yellow pretty soon, like within that day. So if you don't see it yet, you're okay if that's the end of your painting. But if you suddenly went home and poured over one of your paintings that didn't have stain seal, it would turn yellow. So I just wanted to make sure you knew that. So the first thing I was going to start with was taking this board and putting a stain sealer on it. And prime ing it says the first thing have to Dio. And so I started working with ease to show you the stain, and I didn't find one. So I called up Anderson, and I said, I'm not getting a stain and he thought I was complaining. He's like Dana, the technical guy. I talked to you and I said, Why aren't I getting a stain? And then he told me that these are already prepared. So I really like working with ease. And I just put in a big order because I used to do them all myself, you know, stained ceiling and prime ing. But If you're not using these ampersand boards, let's look at what you can dio. So when you know you're gonna be working with acrylic in thick layers off like pouring, you need to first stain seal it so Home Depot cells kills. Some of you have painted your walls and there were stains on there. And so you know what a stain sealer it keeps the same from seeping through all the layers of the paint. Golden has one that's called a G A C 100 g A c means golden artist colors. One day they're gonna give these user friendly names like stain sealer. But what I would do with this one, So this is the G A C 100 and basically, um, I always damp in my brush first. Basically, I'm just going to the first thing I'm gonna do is apply a thin layer of this G A C 100. So I'm doing it pretty sloppily. I mean, but it's working, and this is a very absorbent board. So it's really soaking in when this dries. And about, I don't know, 20 minutes I might put another coat on, but one is usually usually plenty. So when this dries and I could blow dry it pretty quickly, so we'll just pretend that's all dry. So when this is dry, the next thing I would do is prime with Jess. Oh, so basically, I would apply one layer of gesso over the dried stain sealer and one coat of just it was enough for acrylic. You're really just applying the primer to adhesion. You're not applying primer like an oil painter would to create a barrier between the oil and the substrate. So there we are. Now we're ready to do anything we want. We can paint it with color. We can put a painting on there and poor we can just start pouring right away. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that because you might get surprised when you don't know that to find it yellowing. But now anything I do won't get any stain on it. What's the difference between mediums, gels and pastes I'm gonna use This is polymer medium gloss. So remember how fluid that G a C 100 was think of that is pure polymer. Then they're gonna add a little bit of thickener to create a workable medium. This is polymer, medium gloss. Do you see the difference in how it's running? Are you guys able to see that in the monitor? This has a little bit of thickener in it to create some brush stroke and give it some body . So this is polymer with a little bit of thickener, and it's called a medium. Now I'll use a gel. Here's soft gel gloss. Look at the difference between the Joe and the medium. So here we have a medium that looks pretty poor herbal. We're probably going to stick with mediums. Gels give us what texture. Yeah, this has lots of texture. Now both of these air white when they're wet and dry, clear and glossy, here's a medium. Here's a gel, and now let's look at the third and last category, which is paced, and I'll use this light molding paste. That's probably not gonna pour, either, and this is a pace that's white when it's wet and dries white. So it's opaque, whereas thes two are gonna dry transparent, So medium gel and paste is it when it's dry. Same board medium gel paste and you can add gels, mediums and pace to paint to extend them and change the quality. But you can also use them as grounds and as in between layers and as pouring pouring layers . So what has this around? And it says, Ah, media majella paste polymer, medium gloss, soft job loss and the light molding paste. Okay, so I not be talking about all of them as we go through this. So let's talk about pouring mediums. Just because something's fluid does not mean it's going to be a good pouring medium. Here is something that doesn't look so good. This has a big crevice. I don't know if you can see it. This was a poor with color, so pores can you know, as long as you have a pouring medium, you can add color to it or have it clear, and this has a big crevice in it. What happens is some mediums when when you do a poor and you have a puddle, the acrylic shrinks down in depth by about 1/3. So most I don't know if you've noticed this, but when you're painting thickly and you come back the next day, it looks kind of thinner. That's because it does reduce in volume by a good third. So if the top crusts over first and dries and then it sinks back down, that's what causes a crevice. Those guys in Hawaii and East Coast probably don't know what I'm talking about. They could pour anything into look great, and I tried to create a Kravis for you guys. I had to dig this one up in my old old box in the bottom. I tried five different times to create a Kravis to show you, and I couldn't because it's wintertime. And in the summer, everything crevices for me. It's not funny that the weather, the temperature, the humidity, everything effects that. So what I want to tell you is that if you have something that is fluid and you want to know if it's horrible, try it out. Try it out. Try it, Finley. I'll show you a thin poor. Try it thick and see what happens then. I know we all have access to Golden products here, but I often get e mails from people in other countries. It's it's actually fun to get us for people in other countries, and they say I can't get golden. What should I do, they will use what you have an experiment with it. So whatever you've got, if it's horrible or fluid, try it out. But I just wanted you to be wary of of this in the summer time. Um, I can't pour anything that's more than than a thin, thin, thin layer without getting this Kravitz. So I'll pass this around So my three favorite pouring mediums that I'll be using today are three G A C 800 again G A. C stands for golden artist colors. It's a specialty medium made just for pouring, and it does not crevice, although I have to say I did manage to crevice at one time again. If your speed drying this you know anything thick that's a poor. If you try to put it in the sun or speed, dry it. You'll get the Kravis if the top layer crusts over or dries fast and then it drinks down in depth in volume. That's what the crevices from so but the G a C 899.9% of the time I use it no matter what the weather is, no matter what season it is, it doesn't crevice. It won't. Bub, Buckle, crack all kinds of weird things that happen. So I like this one the best. There are times where I will not use this one because it has a slightly cloudy look to it. And I'm gonna show you different thicknesses. A thin poor. I can't see the cloudy nous, but a thick poor I can then the other two that I like to use our the clear tar gel and self leveling gel. These are called gels, but this is I would call it self leveling medium. And remember what I just said about mediums and gels, mediums or portable on gels have that thickener in it. These are the only two exceptions here is the clear tar jail. That's pretty horrible, isn't it? So but they call it a gel. I don't know why they're ruining my definition of the same thing with this. So these are both. They look just like pouring mediums, but they're called gels. So I just didn't want you to get confused. All the other gels air thick and gloppy and create texture. So I'll be using all these three in different different techniques. The other things that are helpful. Toe have our spreaders. Even though I said pouring doesn't use tools, it's nice to have some. And if you're working large, here's some things you can use. This is a silkscreen squeegee, and this is a got this in a kitchen supply store. Um oh, this is a drywall. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you. This is the kitchen supply. This was for cakes and icing a cake. I don't cook. Bake. Sorry, I have to admit, but it's for, um I guess an icing spreader Where cake scooper. Doesn't anybody cook in here way paint instead? Right? Okay. And then, you know all these fancy things. I was really trying my hardest to try different things. But, you know, I have to say I really don't use these very often. I mean, they look like, wow, I could do great things with these, but I pretty much reached for this most of the time. And it is a small piece. I just use a regular palette knife because the poor, I'll show you the poor creates a puddle, and then I'm just working at a very small amounts on the outside. So I'm going Teoh. But this looked good on the table. Didn't. Okay, so 3. Pouring Chapter 2 Cell Pouring: I want to do something called a cell pouring and basically sell. Pouring is when you're using mediums with alcohol and the paint to create a very special mixture that when you pour it, it allows the paint to move around and create cells. Let me show you an example. So here is one example and this actually crevice to because even though I used the G A C 800 I added alcohol and paint and a lot more paint than I normally do, and it got crevice. But I kind of like the texture. Let me show you a couple more examples, this one. And here's this one, and you could see that the paint is moving in interesting ways. Let me show you how to do that. First thing I'm gonna do is give myself a set up, because pouring tends to be very messy. So I have a tray where I covered it and out in aluminum foil. It's gonna collect all the paint, and I will prop up a board. This is a Jess owed cardboard I recommend. I'm just going to use this for the demonstration, but what happens is that when you pour it takes a while for it to dry. And if you're using something that's this thin and flimsy, it might curl up. So I recommend using something more substantial, like 1/4 inch hardboard or something even thicker than that. What I don't recommend using is the card were, but also canvas. If you have stretched canvas, the canvas is going. Teoh droop down with the weight of the poor, and you will be able to get in even layer. So you want to use something that's a rigid surface. You want to prop it up and then you want a level it. So while it dries, it stays the way you like it. So you just get a leveller. They're pretty easy to use once you get the level or on, you can see that it's a little bit towards that way. So I'm just gonna take paper, child or index card and put it under the cuts to lift it a little bit and keep going until this bubble goes smack in the center. The next thing I'm gonna do is make the pouring mixtures, so I like to use cuts. Some artists like to use an equal amount of paint, alcohol and, um, pouring medium. But I find that too heavy with the paint. And so my favorite proportion is to take the G A C 800. Pour that in, and I like to be mostly the pouring medium and then all of used paint. Now, what's really fun is knowing that every paint has a different weight. Each pigment has a different pigment weight, and the paint themselves have different weight. So a high flow paint like this, I'm gonna put a little squirt in there. Couple drops is gonna have a different weight in this mixture than a fluid will And a, um, and iridescent is gonna have a different weight than a modern or a mineral. So it's nice to make a mixture using a little of all the different types of paint. So did this one, this one. So here I'm making combined mixtures and putting quite a few colors in one doesn't. And in here I'm just gonna add one color so pouring you can actually mix it well and make one color poor, whereas these I'm going to leave them on mixed so that they kind of move around on the surface. Now I'm gonna add the alcohol, and I'm just gonna I tried to measure out scientifically different proportions, but what I found was it's really hard to predict with pouring if you go online. There's whole lot of videos that talk about different types of proportions to the alcohol paint and the medium. Just play around with different proportions and find what you like. But like I said, it's really hard to get a set principle. I'm always gonna use a certain amount. If you do get a certain ratio that you like, you can use something like this and measure out equal amounts of each one. But I find that to scientific and it's it ruins my playtime's. So anyway, here we have, uh, a mixture and you mix it up. So this is the alcohol, the paint and the medium, and I'm gonna pour it on there. And if I mixed these up just slightly to get the alcohol in there and pour it over it, look at how they swim around. You could see why I'm using this tray with aluminum foil, and there's lots of ways to do this. But what's happening is the alcohol in this mixture wants to move very fast from the bottom of the layer all the way to the top, and it brings paint with it. So that's what happens is it's It's moving. And even though I just poured this, the reason it's moving is not because of the liquid nature of it, but because that alcohol in there is kind of coming forward and like an erupting like a volcano, and it's pushing these colors around, it's almost impossible to tell what this is gonna look like. You can manipulate it somewhat. You can actually move it around, and you can still add colors on top, and they may actually sink down and get buried while other colors come up. So it's just a really fun way to make a whole painting. Rarely do I find this pouring to be something satisfactory to be a whole painting, but it makes a lot of great under paintings that then I can add some things on top. So this is called cell pouring, and again it's just adding alcohol to your pouring mixture. You do not have to add the alcohol. The alcohol makes that movement happen a lot quicker, 4. Pouring Chapter 3 Pouring a Glossy Layer: most of us think of a I call it a surfboard Finished with a pouring technique that gives a very high gloss, Super smooth brush lists rich layer of clear or color over a painting. That would be my definition of pouring. This is the same board with what color did I use? A red iron oxide fluid paint. And this is the same red iron oxide paint with I pour on top of it, and it really brings out uh, well, it it creates a whole different look very contemporary. But it also brings out the flavor of the colors. So, um, those of you that have been to the beach, I guess everybody's been to the beach. But when we see shells or rocks under the water and we think all this the most beautiful thing I've seen and we take it home and it dries out and it looks like a gray rock s Oh, this is doing the same thing by putting something glossy on top. You're really enhancing the pigment in there and changing the quality off the surface and and the color so I'll pass these around first thing you want to do is Where can you pour? That's gonna be out of the way that you can leave it. You don't want to have to move it. The second thing is put plastic down cause it's pretty messy. You want to be able to just slosh it over the sides without worrying about getting it all over something. And the next thing I do is I like to prop everything up, so I just use little jars. So here's a couple of jars and let's see all poor. So I made a little painting. Little landscape painting. This is it, dressed with the pain on. And now I have another one, Um, Jared paint in multiples. It's really fun. Actually, I did paint entities for this. All right, so here is one without the poor. Then I'm going to show you one with the poor, and then I have it already dry. It's like this is like a cooking show. Okay, so here's Here's the painting dry. So it's up on these, um, jars with plastic, and I am going to use the G A C 800. Why? Because it's the easiest one to use on. They never have to worry about it. So I'm gonna go with this one. The other two I have to add water to, and I have to apply them very thinly. But the G A C 800 you can do any. It's pretty hard to mess this up. Okay, so here's the G A C 800 and before I pour, I'm gonna make sure I have alcohol in a spray bottle close by. You don't. When you do a poor, you have a small window of opportunity to spread it and then spray the alcohol to get rid of the bubbles. So if you have to walk across the room by the time you get back, we'll show you. I'll show you that. That'll be fun. All right, so let's start with the GSC 800. Make sure everything's in the right spot. If you're working large, you really need to make sure everything before you pour it. Everything is there because you don't have that much time, and the big ones air harder than a small one. But so basically, I'm just gonna pour a puddle in the middle, and this is a small one, so I'm just gonna use this palette knife Now I can moving around like this. I like toe use knives and things as little as possible. And I think I need a little bit more, more so you can just do this and not use any tools and get a really, really smooth poor or you can just work fast. And can you guys see this on the okay? You can work fast and just, you know, manipulate it out. This is why I like having it propped up on the on the cups. If I didn't, it would just sit in its own. You know, it would swim in there, and picking it up would be kind of a mess. Okay, so once I met with it, it it's still kind of moving around, so that's good. But if it was a large piece, I'd want to really work fast. And I started with that puddle in the middle. And then I work out like a spot, you know, spokes on a wheel and then really fast. And then so do you see the little bubbles here, take alcohol. I just use regular eyes appropriate alcohol, and I put it in a little misty spray bottle and I just spray it lightly and that all the bubbles disappear. So if I waited about another couple of minutes and I did that with the alcohol, Um See, now it's nice and smooth. Did you see the? I'll do it again. See the little pits that form. Then they disappear. It's starting to set up the G A C 800. So if I wait another minute and do that, they won't necessarily fill in. So you've got a little bit of a time window there. So far, so good. Yeah, straight alcohol. I just use them. I even brought the bottle. We're visual, right? I just poured this in the spray. Nice spray bottle. If it was too harsh a spray bottle like those water sprayers. Some of them are really harsh than it would might. Not Philly and again. So that alcohol is a really good good thing. What I'm trying to show you is how to get a flawless. Did everyone see that red board? That was pretty good, huh? Yeah, no Kravis ing. No cracking, no bubbles. And all I did was just like this. In fact, here is, um, this one with the poor on it and you can see there's a little bit of texture, and that's because I put a separating paper on it. They're pretty delicate surfaces, so this was supposed to be nice and flawless, too. But at least you could see the difference in what that poor does to the quality of the surface and the and the color. Well, you know, that's a good question. And you know that flawless, beautiful red board that I passed around by the time I brought it here. It had this stuff happening on it, so I just stuck it over there and did another poor on top. That's how it looks so good, cause I carry no nothing touched the front surface. So when you do pores and you love that surface, it's a tricky thing. Teoh ship and handle the Onley thing I recommend the only thing that I found is Teoh have a box that has phone that's higher than the painting people cardboard over, so nothing touches the surface. It is. It is a problem if you varnish it on top, that will create a different type of surface, but it'll be a little more easy to handle It is a delicate surface because it's so perfect , you know. So here is a pretty thin, clear poor, and this is what it does Remember I said, the G A C 800 is slightly yellow and cloudy, so I don't know if you can see it. It's a little bit. Just want to show you how subtle that yellowing is. Here is an under painting and here is the same under painting where I poured the G A C 800 over it. Do you see that slight look at the area here? It's slightly yellow, so it just does that. 5. Pouring Chapter 4 Deep Pours & Embedding: is the one that's not dry yet, and I hesitated to bring it. But it was the image 100 hair, and it was a deep, deep form and show you how to do this. It's like 1/4 inch, so but you can see the outside edges are clear. This middle is going to clear up. I just didn't want you to get confused. The juicy 800 will not look like this, but when you look at the edges, it does look a little bit yellow and cloudy. Anybody does this remind you of any other medium? Yeah, so the G A C 800 that little bit of cloudy, that little bit of yellow looks like and caustic. This is that you want to do something that looks like and caustic, used to U. S. C. 800 all. A lot of the first techniques I'll be using used this and then you can just as you layer them and pain in between. You could create some really, really nice effects. So does everybody. Yeah, this is two weeks already. So does everyone get that? The center is a little bit cloudy because it's still wet. Even though the top layer dries first, then it shrinks down. It's got a little more shrinking to go, and then this will clear up. You could see the edges are are Yeah, that's a good question. That's why I'm gonna pass it around. But look at this adage here that's dry and clear. Look at the difference. Good question. Yeah, And I really wanted to show you that subtle yellow. And but look at this. This is just one thin poor. So don't be afraid of the GSC 800 just such an easy product to use. But I wanted to let you know that in thick pours it will go cloudy and yellow, whereas here, a thin poor, it's just a very slight. If you wanted to use the GSC 800 in a thick poor without having this yellow, can anybody think of an alternative? I could tell we got a smart group here, so I figured I'd let you answer it. There's what It's not gonna change. That's good. Anything on top of this is not going to change this quality of this layer. Several thin pours using the other products. And I'll show you where on top of, say, metallic. I don't want any yellowing in any cloudy, and that's where I'm gonna go to these other two products. But how can I use this product? Let's say I love this product and it won't crevice. It's so great. But I want a thick poor I wanted smooth. So here's a hint. Take a gel, put the gel on. The jail's gonna look kinda gloppy, right? Put the gel on it because you want, and then do a thin poor of the GSC 800 on top. Just trying to get you to think about how toe work with different. All right, so I'll keep this up here again. I'm gonna do a deep poor and then I'll pass them all around. Does everyone get what I'm passing around? Here is the original painting with nothing on it. And here is the same painting with a poor, thin poor, the G A C 800. And here is the painting of a thick poor that I'll show you how to get it this thick by building up the sides on its not quite dry in the center. Well, I actually had one for you guys that was twice this thick and it's just can't Even so, I'm thinking I month for this one and a couple months for the other one. So for a week it was sitting on a table in the middle of my studio and I was thinking, I'm when I'm really make sure I tell you guys to plan ahead and because I one of them I did move after a few days and the whole thing shifted in in the level. So let's do a deep poor and that poor that has been going around on that painting member that with the cloud in the middle, it's still not dry. That's what I'm going to demonstrate next. How did I do that? Okay, so here is yet another of the same paining. And I'm gonna put my, um, put my cops here and I'm gonna put this on. And what did I forget last time? That's really important Now. Yea, OK, yeah. So I'm gonna try to make it as level as possible, But come to think of it, when I did that one, I gave up because I used the level a little bit. But it was so hard to tell that I ended up doing something else, but the level works pretty good. I just I liked the push pin. That was what I developed last week was tryingto um So here's what I do. First thing I'm gonna dio yes, levels important, but I'm gonna do it after I pour, I'll level it like this. All right, So the first thing to do is take duct tape, just regular duct tape from Home Depot, and I'm going to, um, build a wall. I'm not gonna build. This is just putting it on build. Sounds too complicated. I'm just putting it on. Not having the sides of these cradled boards is really helpful. I've done it with a thin, but this is really great. And wrap it around. I guess I'll do the whole thing. It's really hard to have is prepared and come here with all these boxes and have it not fall apart. But it's pretty simple, right? Just take duct tape. Can't believe this works. I love tricks that really work. Someone tell I heard this somewhere about duct tape. It was like, let me try this, and I Yeah, the acrylic doesn't stick to it. for some reason, looks like a little casserole dish. Doesn't all of a sudden with the painting in the some New England casserole dish? All right, Now what do you think the problem is going to be if I pour in that leaking out? Okay, so I'm gonna take a gel gloss gel, and I'll use a stiff one. They come soft, regular, heavy, extra heavy. There's even a high, solid Jill. I already Here's high solid gel. It's like the thickest one I think exists. But any gel work and I just take the jail and I was using anything work, a brush, a work. I was using this shape or tool. But can you see if I and that I can hold it up to hold it up and put it down? I just put the gel in the Are You guys used to the fact that it's white when it's wet and it dries clear. Okay, good. I just want to remind you, and I ran it all along the edge. Hi. I could use I could use it. They all are. All of the gloss gels are clear gloss. Matt, I'm not using mad in this because the mat gels are gloss gels with a matting agent like a powder in it, and that would not dry clear. Matt is another way to get that in caustic or waxy look. But I think the GSC 800 tops it all that, don't you think? When did you see it up close? Doesn't look really waxy. Okay, so I won't bore you with going all the way around and then I'll actually get to see if it really does leak so important. But so you get it. I put the gel all around and I don't even have to let it dry. It's so thick, it stays there in that in that seem. And when I pour, it won't get disturbed. So once I put it all the way around, I always get nervous that as we're all visual, if I don't do it, you guys want to its But you get it right that you now using the GI 8800. And that is the Onley one that can go in a deep pore, the other to the clear target on the self leveling. You will never get them even in Hawaii. Sticker unthinking, thicker than 1/4 of an inch. They're gonna crevice. And the only way to use those I'll talk about those in a little bit is to add water and lots and lots of thin layers. Or like we talked about before, put gel on first. But G A C 200 is the only one that I know that will go in this without crevice ing. Um, all right, so basically, you're just gonna pour the G A C 800 in here, but before I pour it in, I want to mention that you can use this opportunity to embed objects. So let's say I want to in bed. I just found this one. I found a butterfly. I have no idea. Must be from a gift package or something. But let's say I wanted to put this on this staining instead of just sitting in there and pouring. It would float to the top. I will take the gel just like I did on the sides. I'll take a little bit of Joe. I was looking for shells, actually, but didn't find any this morning so the butterfly will have to do. I just put some gel and I'll stick it there and then all poor again. I don't have to wait for it to dry that jealous so stiff that it will keep it down in the poor. So this is an opportunity for you if you want it in bad things. Uh, that you could do that. And then we take the G A C 800. One of the tricks you can do is take Basilan and put it around the outside edge. And then if you're careful, it's hard when you're poor, you don't want to get the vasselin in your product, but it helps keep the lids loose. Another thing is putting plastic wrap and then putting the lid on. Okay, So then, um, can everybody see This is where I can't pick it up nicely and then I'll just pour it over it. Now I'm gonna have to remember that it's going to shrink by 1/3. So if you want to put a mark, you know, on your tape where how far you want to go or you could take a pushpin. Here's one of those big metal pushpins, and you can stick it in and see how deep it is And this is where I I had the two of them to show you one with 1/4 into moment, the half inch, the half inches. If you see me in two months, you could see it, but that one I wanted to I took the push because I wanted to see if one was, in fact, thicker than the other, because I wanted to show you two different thicknesses. And that's where I got the idea of Hey, this is a great way of seeing how its level, because I had gotten a level it. But what was great as I could like, put it in the corners and I could say, Oh, it's deeper here and then I could take those little pieces of paper and push it under, so that's what it looked like. It had all these little pieces of paper in different places, and with the push pin, I could see what I did do. That was a big mistake. I minus will just tell you because I'd like to save you from all the mistakes that I made. One of the things I did was I noticed they were both the same thickness and I wanted one to be thinner than the other I want to be picking one of So I got really lazy. I knew I should have scooped it out with a little cup, right? But no, I got lazy, and I just picked it up and poured it out. And that was a big, big mess, because then it started to leak. Then that gel didn't hold and it started leaking. It was being eso. Also, when I took the duct tape off, there was this kind of a rim happening, so don't do that. Okay, so but you get the You know, actually, this is interesting because it's not leaking where I didn't put the gel, but I don't know if that will hold up in a a couple of days. It's gonna be wet for a couple of days, so I think the gel is a worthy, you know, otherwise you waste all that product and any questions about this the deep poor, No good. Okay, now let's move on. Yeah, sure. Doesn't matter what? Yeah. Now let's say you have things that are from nature. Live like a butterfly wing or ah, seed pod. Sometimes the color well, steep Because it takes so long to drive, the color will seep out. So let's say you put a trying to think of something I did. Where I've learned this lesson. A rose petal. I put a rose petal in the middle. And then after a couple of days, there was like, this red trail, you know. So what you could do is you take a medium, a gloss medium like polymer, medium gloss, paint the rose petal first let it dry, then glue it and stick it in. And then the whole coloring. Thank you for reminding me when I showed you that alcohol spray, I wanted to say that you should do that each time and that I was just gonna probably forget . But yeah, here it is again. Thank you for reminding me once Ideo, do you Can you see this in the monitor? The big bubble. It's really exciting when you're working by yourself in the studio. These little exciting moments are really right. Right, So here we go. Okay. See, they just pop And then so yes, I forgot to mention thank you for reminding me. The alcohol is good All all the time Yes. And did you notice the that deep poor had us weird edge to it? I hacked away at it. I could have done a neater job with a razor blade. So I took a single edge blade and I it sort of went up in a It went up in a little point. I don't know why may I think this was the one that I poured out. So it went up higher, and then it was really easy. I just took a blade and went like this. And just so you could do a neater job than that, here's the I'll just pass this around. This is another on Deep Poor. Before I knew about the duct tape, I was building a wall with gel, and it's kind of a weird look, but this is a Unfortunately, I don't have the original painting that you can compare it, but I think you could start to see that yellow and cloudy and a thick, poor soft pass this around. Thank you for reminding now. I mentioned this before, but it's good to repeat thes possible disasters. Any time you you have a tick big layer off a poor any time you try to hasten. What do you think is gonna happen? Crevice ing? Yes, because the top is going to drive fast. And then it's going to continue to shrink down in depth by 1/3. Now jails are different. Those gels the high solid gel, the soft job loss that I talked about. Jowell shrink down without crevice ing. They're just made you. Can I? Still, If it's more than 1/2 an inch thick, I don't try to speed dry it. So that's why I work on 8 to 10 paintings at the same time. Because I do. One little thing like this takes what? This could take 20 minutes. Then there it is and I have the whole day free. So Oh, so I work on several at the same time, so I don't because if I didn't, I would do things like forced dry or try to push it or play with it, cause I wanted to keep working, but that piece needed to sit most of my work. Each layer needs at least a day or two to dry in between, so that's why I work on many sinking 6. Pouring Chapter 5 More Cool Pouring Techniques: In addition to getting that clear, glossy, smooth brush list rich layer, it can create some really interesting techniques. And, um, here's a poor. While several pours, each poor is a different color. This is a transparent colored pores, and here is a poor that I did on top of a crackle paste, so with a crackle paste it gets a little bit. Sometimes it flakes off and it's not a stable, and so a poor can stabilize some of these unstable products. In addition, you can also smooth out textural services by by adding a poor. And here's another example, and I'll be showing you a lot more than this. But just in the beginning to show you that there is a wide variety off things we can do with this idea of pouring and this is another poor, I'll be showing you this later. It's a pour over glass bead gel, so I first put the textural ground on again. I'm just summarising, but I will be going over these. I put a textural ground on, then put washes of fluids to get to enhance that texture. Then I didn't want the texture anymore. I poured to smooth it over. Why? So that I could then continue painting without keeping that textural patterning happen. And I'll explain this more if that seems confusing to you. Well, it won't be later when I talk about it. Now, let's talk about textural surfaces, taking advantage of those with paint and then smoothing them out afterwards. So I've got three texture products that I was gonna use. So there's a lot of textural products, a lot of gels and paste that give you texture. This is pomace gel, and it gives a really beautiful, gritty texture. Thistles, glass, bead gel. I put it over color, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see it. So first I painted, I left the sides. Wonder if you could see it. I left the sides without the glass. Be jealous. You could see the difference. Then I put the glass bgl on top, and here is a crackle paste. All three of these are grounds. In other words, I applied a product like here is the Here's the course. Promise Joe. That's what I used on that. And here's the surface, and I took the product and I applied it. This is kind of dry I would add a little water to this, and I applied it and let it dry overnight. And then it becomes a ground or a layer that has changed the way the substrate well except paint and let's see what that means. So I like I like grounds a lot in my work. I'll use them almost all the time because they get really cool effects. So with these grounds, I'm gonna use, um, hold on, get some water here. I'm gonna use the fluid paint, and most of there's really two kinds of paint. There's the see If I have a there's the paint that comes in bottles that's very fluid. And then this is the same color in a thick paint. In comes in tubes and jars and pretty much for everything I'm doing today. I'm gonna be using the fluids most. There's a misconception that the fluid paint is a diluted version of the thick, but remember that first G a C 100. I poured out how fluid that was, and I said, It's not diluted. Everything, think, has thickener added to it. So this is really pure polymer with pigment. This is the same thing with thickener added to it. So Thistle is has the same intensity of color as this one does. So I'm going to start with the fluids. I'm gonna be using those in a wash So that C can you, um I drive enough room on the monitor that you could see this. Okay, great. So I'm gonna grab a couple of of ah fluid paints. I'm putting one in each plate because I'm gonna be adding a lot of water. It's gonna turn into a puddle. And when I want what I dilute the paint like this, it will emphasize the the promise I like toe wet first. So first I'm gonna wet it. And then when I put the pain on, it has this different effects than if I would paint on a dry surface without the ground. Let's look at this glass bead. Joe. They're really fun to play with these different types of grounds. When you apply the paint on, it just creates a different different look. So same with the crackle paste. I'm really just doing a very quicky thing here because I want to move on to the poor on top , but you get the idea that by using washes diluted pain, you could take advantage of this texture. Then here are the paintings that I did on this thes textures. Never enough room. So here's the original promise Ground. And I did a painting on the promise. Okay. And I couldn't get this effect if it was on just a plain old Jess owed board. And here is the ground of the crackle paste. And here I did just stains on it. And here was the glass Be Joe and I put a little sort of a little landscape on there. Now, I guess the reason I'm doing all this is because I wanted to show you how. Why would you go through all this trouble and then pour on top? And that's because you get different painting effects with different surfaces. So I start with the ground to get this and then I pour on top of it. So here is the promise with the image, and here it is poured with a poor on top. So two reasons I would pour on top of, ah, ground. An image that is one is because I don't want the texture at the end. I just wanted the texture to use for the painting process, and the other is that I want to maybe applied glazes or smooth brush strokes on top, and I'll never be able to do it on here. So I'm changing the quality of the painting by by applying a poor on top. Does that make sense? Okay, that's why I went through all this. Trouble is like, Well, they're gonna go. Why? Why go through all that work? Because some of these grounds create techniques, create a look that you could only get with them, and then you can get rid of the texture if you don't want it. But this perfectly fine, too. And the painting here, in other words, all just choices. Okay, so I'll pass this board around with this, right, and I'll pass around this board with this. So I'm changing a lot. And in addition to changing the surface and smoothing it out, I'm filling in the cracks and making it it here better because acrylic is glue. So you really reinforcing it? It seeps down under. And then on this one, I went a little further. Here is the glass be Joe over. So the original had just these stripes of color paint. Then glass bgl is a ground. I let that dry for a day. Then I did a wash image, and here it is. And then I poured the G A C 800 on top, and then I continued to paint. So if you just look at the sky here, I get this quality, you know, with the glass bgl. And then I pour on top. And then I put ah, bronze color on top in a wash to get something else. So when you look at it, it's got a really interesting depth to it. So here we have a poor in the middle layer. Am I losing anybody? Are you guys good? So in addition to a poor on top, now we have pores in the middle. Yeah, good question. Acrylic loves to stick to itself. You never have an adhesion problem between acrylic layers, whether it's diluted with water, whether it's Scott medium innit, gel paste. Whether it's playing paint thick, thin doesn't matter. Wet on wet, dry on wet weight on any acrylic, your first layer is the most important where the paint is the first layer of paint goes on your substrate, and that's why you prime, because it helps the adhesion at that. At that point, that's good, because a lot of what I'm doing is just mixing techniques, a different technique on every layer and that I think aside from pouring, if you change your technique on each layer and each layer is more transparent than the one before you can create the finish, the end result can be something that no one's ever seen before. I mean, there's so many different techniques, and that's what I like to play with this this each layer is a chance to do something different. Let me send you. Yeah, so it's It's huge. So thank you for saying that because okay, here is here is paint with the glass Be Joe with paint on top again, right? Let me just says now I can put if I don't like half of the painting. I can now take paste, and I can because paste dries white, so it's almost like creating a whole new surface. I can take this and I can put it in some areas. Can you still see this on the monitor? I mean, I know making a mess up here, but you get the concept that I can now put a ground. Let that dry put washes on that, or I can paint wet and wet on it. I mean, this is the beauty of acrylic is that you can work in any anything goes on any layer. So far, so good. Okay, I'm just really going through a variety of things you could do with pouring. And then for some of you, there might only be one thing that I talk about that works for your work. But that's what I'm hoping is if I can get you inspired with one thing. Okay, here is a photograph. This was actually in my and my first book, but it's a good example, So I wanted to show you. So here's a photo. And here is a colored poor. So with color, we can add a small amount of color and keep it transparent, or we can add a lot of color and make it opaque. So with the transparent, it's almost like a glaze. So I wanted to show you the difference between a brush applied glaze and a poor in the middle And here's the original photograph. Is there anybody that needs me to demonstrate the difference between a glaze and a poor? A glaze is just adding a lot of medium and a little bit of paint and brushing it on, and I put to brush coats of it. But look how rich the poor just gives you an instant rich, luscious layer of color, that glazing, I might have to do 10 layers of glaze to get this look. Here's another example of a photograph. I used to own this. It's a Kodak of advertisement when I was in New York and ah, it was fun because it was real big, like two feet by three feet. And then one day I didn't want it anymore. And I love New York, cause you just put it out on the stoop and five minutes later it was gone. Some someone claimed it, but I couldn't use it in my book because I couldn't find the original copyright person. So this is But this would be a good example, cause it's like an old piece, and here is too much color in the cup, and I want to show you what too much color is this is one drop in two ounces of the G A C 800 this is two drops. And so this is why I'm But it demonstrated because it's really easy to overkill and put too much color on. I'm going to start coloring the medium. I'm gonna add paint to the medium and and we're still working with the GSC 800. So I haven't switched to those other two yet. But which painted and coming to use the thick pain for the fluid? Yeah, sure. Here is the original photograph, and I am going to put an antique poor on this. So I'm gonna take a cup and I'll add the G A C 801st. And this is about Let's see, this is a four ounce cup, so half of it is two ounces and I'm gonna use Thea quinacrine own Nicholas Oh, gold fluid paint. I like this one. The quinacrine. Oh, Nicholas, So cold is a really nice melo warm, You know, gold color here is one drop. I just meant, you know, a drop from a fluid bottle, not a scientific thing. One drop and I'm gonna mix it in now because the G A C 800 is white. When it's wet and dries clear, it looks like nothing at all. And this is where it gets tricky. When you start adding color, you have to add very small amounts of color. Can you see the color of the cup in the monitor with this dark? So go lighter. Because guess what you can always do to like, If this isn't dark enough, you can pour again on top of it. So with this poor, I'm gonna mix it really well and I'm just gonna pour over it. And just as you had asked, I can cover the whole thing or I could make a shape out of it. And there it is, and that's gonna dry, just like of the board that's being passed around. I took regular fluid paint and poured it into shapes, and in the summer these would crevice, but they their little bubbly and crevice e. But that's OK. You can either take the G A C 800. So these air opaque colors right, unlike the one I just did. This one is very transparent. So if I added, say, four drops of color again, you don't have to overkill 1234 and mix this up. That's a pretty substantial color pouring. I mean, when you use mediums, you're really saving a lot of money because the pigment is what costs you a lot of money. So this looks really light. But that's gonna be a very deep, rich color like this, so I can take the GSC 800 if I don't want any crevice ing, and I want a nice and add color and pour them on. This is freezer paper. It's not wax paper, but plastic wrap or freezer paper will work, and these shapes will peel off. Everyone following suffer, and then you can re glue them. I just simply put him on a black surface and make a composition out of them. So pouring shapes is really fun. You can pour it directly on a painting like I just did that transparent and taking the photo. But you can also pour it on a removable surface and use them as collage items. So I'll pass these around these air removable you feel feel free to pick them off and and play with them. I wanted to also show you this board again. I showed you in the beginning, By the way, I don't as I pass it around. There's a crevice in here, so you know, crevice thing sometimes just adds a little effect. It's just part of the painting. It's not necessarily a bad thing. You just have to decide if you want to avoid it or not. The way I did this painting Waas, same as this. I took a cup of the 800. I put a couple drops in one drop in two ounces to keep it transparent, and I started with these two and let them dry. Then I did this and let it dry. And then this. That makes sense. Or you can just do this. I'll just make another color. Here's green. Um, so here's two collars. I could pour one out and I can kind of get a shade. This is how I did that other one. Then I let it dry, and then I put this one on top. But instead of letting it dry, I could also do wet and wet and watch them move together. And I can even start to work them and they start to create different. And then I could pour a new color on top of this. So I just have this one mixed. How long does in about six hours or overnight? Cause it's thin. I'm not. Once, so does that make sense? When and wet creates a whole different idea. One more fun. This one of my favorites. You take the G A C 800 and this is called a dirty, poor, dirty, mixed poor. You take a drop of different colors, so I'll do the brown. Do the green. I'll do an orange. OK, do you see that in the monitor? It just has his three drops of color. And then, instead of mixing it, homogenous Lee, I just kind of makes it a little bit, and it's kind of a dirt, you know. I'd call it dirty cause it's it's not a homogenized mix, and then I'll take a board here is kind of a fun one in order, has pain on it and put it on top and see how it's doing its own little fun design. The green is under there, you can't see it, so when this dries clear, what's really fun it puts fun back into your painting because you have no idea what this is gonna look like. Because if that's if that's fun for you. If you're really into control, it's not fun. But when this dries, the green is under the under there. I don't know if you could see it. You see it now that's the white is going to go clear, and then you're gonna get to see the green and orange, and I would have preferred not to mess it up, but just to let it that's so The other thing you could do is pour the G A C 800 then put the drops on and then move it in and around. It creates things, too. So just the last thing I want to talk about is the other two products that I haven't really mentioned, that they have some fun qualities. So the self leveling gel and the clear tar gel are the other two pouring mediums that I like, and they can't be poured thickly again. You need to practice, you know, just experiment on a little thing to see overnight if it Kravis is or not, and what might work in the winter time or with the humidifier on might not work in a different situation, but as long as they're thin, so they're pretty thick, this is the clear tar jail. It's not think like a gel, but it's still pretty, pretty gooey. So I would add about 30 to 40% water. I always use filtered water. I'd add water not to the whole container. I would, you know, pour into these separate little things. Look how thick it is. It's really Can you see how thick So I'll add, um, 20% water on. I'll take a nice stir it up. It's And then why am I adding water? Because if I don't add water, it's really hard to get this thin. Now I can use it like the GSC 800 I can pour, and I don't get any of that cloudy or yellow effects. So here's an instance of when I would use that. Let's say I have ah, highly reflective surface. This is the metallic paints. This is the iridescent gold, and this is the interference violet that need light to create this effect. So if I used the G A. C and 100. I would cut that effect so I would use I would add water to the Clear Tar Jail or the self leveling gel and apply. Pour it and remember how I spread it out. In the beginning, I would spread it with a little more muscle so that I'm spreading it really thin because I can always put another coat on top 30 to 40. You could feel when it loosens up clear. Tarja has two properties that are different from anything else. If you don't dilute it, if you don't dilute it, it will do. Ah, marble technique and a Jackson Pollock drizzle. But you have to live with the crevice. And I I don't mind the crevice. But what you would do is I mean, I would compromise and say, All right, I'll live with the crevice because I want the marble or the drizzle, so I'll show you those two and then we've covered it all. So thanks for sticking it out the whole time. All right, So if I take the clear Tar Jail and I added into a cup like this and I'm gonna add one drop of color and I'm gonna mix it up. Now that I've air rated it, it won't work in the drizzle way that I want to show you for a couple hours. So I have one that I already made. Here it is with blue color in it. This is the clear tar jail with the blue color, and it does this really great drizzle. Okay? It's really getting messy on the stand. All right, So do you see this drizzle? Yeah. And this is how I created these pieces again. The clear tar jail does not have water in it. If it's diluted, I dilute. Why did I diluted before? Make it thinner to make it able to spread it thinly so it doesn't crevice in a for a clear coat. But if you want to do a drizzle, don't add water, just added color and let it sit for a couple hours. And then So I had a cup for each color, and it's that drizzle. The last thing I wanted to show you is it does a really cool marbleized technique, and here's here's what it's gonna look like when it's finished, and I'll just demonstrate real quick. So if I just take the clear Tar Joe and I pour it over a surfaced. It's gonna Kravis because it's pretty thick. Look how thick that is. This is why when I when you add water, you could feel when it's loose. But for this I'm not gonna add water to it. I'm just gonna add a couple of drops of color. You know, there's dessert dessert plates that they have. Okay, so all I did was, um for that piece that you're looking at now is just drag something through this white gel will turn clear, and then all you're going to see is the colored patterns. And if I did this on freezer paper, I'd be able to peel it up. I could cut it with scissors and create a shape as a collage item. So I think we really packed it in there with pouring