I painted over an acrylic pour!
Want to know how I turned an acrylic pour into an abstract painting of an elephant? Then keep reading… :)
At the beginning of last year I started experimenting with fluid art, and more specifically, acrylic pouring.
When I first saw videos on acrylic pouring, I felt like so much paint goes to waste, as it gets “spilled” over the sides of the canvas to reserve the composition or pattern in the middle. I mean, we all know what art supplies cost! Later on I learned that a lot can be done with the paint that flows over the edges, like turning the dried paint skins into pretty jewelry. But that’s a whole other post…
Anyway, I then stumbled upon a video of Dutch artist, Rinske Douna. She developed the “dutch pour” technique, where she pours a selection of colors in a puddle on the canvas and then blows it out with a hairdryer to create a composition. Her videos inspired the experimental artist in me and I just had to try it myself! These were the very first acrylic pour paintings I made.
From there I also experimented with watercolor as well as inks on canvas.
I tried pouring onto bigger canvasses and really liked how the paint interacted, flowed and merged into new colors. And I especially liked how beautiful cells and lacing formed when heat gets introduced to pop the bubbles in the paint.
Even though I really loved the outcome of my efforts, I felt like something was still missing, as if the acrylic pour background was just the start to another painting.
Then I got the idea to paint something on top of the pour, to use the lines and patterns as a guide for some type of form to emerge through it. I 'converted' a pour into a painting of a Buffalo, and later last year I created another conversion with a blue Koi fish.
The idea is for it to look like the subject is 'appearing' from behind or emerging through the original painting, almost like a hologram. Or fluidgram, if you will... :) Or as if the paint was poured over the subject, and in the case of the elephant, like he was walking right through a waterfall of paint...
I wanted to film the process on one of these paintings and love to share this one with you.
Just a side note; there are SO many techniques on creating fluid art. I’ve only tried the Dutch pour, paint swipe and tilting techniques. For the Buffalo and blue Koi fish I used a combination of the dutch pour and tilting techniques, and the elephant’s background was done with the paint swipe technique.
This original idea is so exciting and so unpredictable. I’m kind of addicted to the concept, and am already planning my next fluid art conversion!
...follow your art...♥
