How I Got into Acrylic Pouring

 

Dear Pouring Friends, 

 

So, I stumbled onto Acrylic Pouring.  I wasn't looking for it.

It was my husband's birthday weekend, and there was a free admission day at the local science center, complete with live alpacas and a free planetarium show.  

 

(My husband is an avid stargazer, so this was perfect.)

We got to the planetarium late and it was the last showing of the day.  Consequently, we were at the end of a very, very long line.  And there was nothing to do but wait and look around.  I noticed that the woman ahead of me was holding something carefully in a wad of paper towels.

It turned out to be a wet painting.  I asked her about it (I can talk to strangers easily, for some reason), and fortunately for me, she was the chatty type.  She eagerly told me that there had been an art booth for the kids, and that it was very easy to do, and that just used Elmer's Glue and acrylic paint, and that you could even make jewelry from it somehow.

Well, I thought, if it's easy enough for kids, maybe I could learn how to do it!

(I have a background of 35 years in calligraphy and its related arts, so I’m not entirely new to art, design, and creativity, but I am definitely not a painter.)

With that small amount of information, that evening I googled "Elmer's glue painting kids".  And that opened up a whole new world for me.  A wonderful, colorful world called "acrylic pouring".  Now that I knew what it was called, I could google and learn about it much easier.

Soon I found myself on YouTube and binge watching videos.

Fortunately, I found the AcrylicPouring.com free e-mails right away and bought their online video class.  And I found Julie Cutts, of Pouring Your Heart Out, on YouTube about the same time and started soaking everything in.

I was excited and making a shopping list for my new painting passion.  Amazon couldn't deliver the goods fast enough.

. . .

That was October 2018.  And I have been pouring ever since.  It is so exciting and always wonderful.  I primarily do layered flip cup pours, and you never know what you're going to get when you flip that cup over!

We pourers joke amongst ourselves that it is an addictive hobby and that it would be best if you had a trust fund.  You can’t have too many blank canvases or tubes of paint.

Very early on, on Day 4, I began using Julie Cutts' Elmer's Glue recipe of 60% glue + 40% water.  And I used that until February of 2019.

Then I tried Liquitex Pouring Medium.  ♥   And my world changed again.

All of a sudden I was getting crazy, vivid results and beautiful, fluid cells.  I was hooked.  For a while I used both recipes, and while I still recommend the glue recipe, I have now switched over to using Liquitex Pouring Medium exclusively.  No mean feat, given how expensive it is.

I can get away with this mainly because I work on such little items, like 5 and 6 inch wood circles and 3 or 5 inch square canvases or gesso boards.  Every time I end up with a piece that I like, however, I always wish that it was on a 12 x 12 inch canvas.  <sigh>  Well, hopefully someday.  It's good to have goals.

So, that's how I got started in all of this.  This exciting fluid painting art form that gives me such satisfaction and joy.  Truly, I am in a state of Flow every time I step into my studio.  And at night, I dream about colors upon colors.  Now, how does it get any better than that??

And that free planetarium show that started all this?  Well, my husband says that it turned out to be kind of expensive after all.  LOL  

 

Love,

Donna Livingston
♥

 

 

 

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