Acrylic Pouring No. 4

 

A few months back, I started experimenting with a new painting technique called acrylic pouring (if you´ve missed my first acrylic pouring painting click here).

It’s been a lot of fun, although I do have slight problems with the unpredictability of the whole process. As soon as you let go of the paint it pretty much does what it wants and you can merely stand by and watch. 😉

 

Acrylic Pouring No. 4 (acrylics and pouring medium on cardboard; January 2019)

 

Ironically enough, the unpredictability part is also the one that makes the butterflies in my stomach dance up and down and giddy with excitement.

I swear, as long as it takes to prepare the painting – and I´m talking about quite a lot of time to mix each color separately until you’re happy with the result), I even spend more time just watching the thing grow and settle once it’s all been poured on the canvas, or in this case, the card board.

 

Detail Acrylic Pouring No. 4

 

There is of course the possibility to try and force the colors to flow in the direction you want it to flow by angling the canvas, but that´s about it. You can’t influence their behavior once they’ve been poured. All that is part of your preparation, by adding to its fluidity through careful use of silicon oil – use too much or too little, swirl too often or not often enough, all that has an effect on how the color will act once it’s on the surface.

 

Detail Acrylic Pouring No. 4 (bird?)

 

What I really like best of this technique, is to watch for patterns or forms that seem to emerge all by their own. Just like you do when you’re watching a sky full of clouds.

In this pouring, my fourth, I detected a little yellow bird in the upper left corner of the painting, and a tree or weeping woman in the lower right corner.

 

Detail Acrylic Pouring No. 4 (wave?)

 

 

Detail Acrylic Pouring No. 4 (tree?)

 

And in case you´re wondering what happened to Acrylic Pouring No. 2 and 3: they ended up on the same canvas, somewhat unhappy with how things went for them.

 

Acrylic Pouring No. 2 and 3 (acrylic on canvas; 2018)

 

I ‘d decided to use some lovely purple, turquoise and yellow for my second pouring experiment (it took ages to mix those!), and it started well enough when all of a sudden the colors decided that they’d much rather mix and form a funny sort of mud brown instead of nicely being on their own once they were on the canvas.

The only piece that resisted this unwelcome assembly, was the upper left corner of the painting.

 

What´s left of Acrylic Pouring No. 2

 

Very disappointed I decided to try and rescue the painting by pouring another mix on the canvas the next day, this time I opted for black and white in the hope it would somehow make the whole thing look like it were part of outer space and the colorful bit look like it was some kind of nebula.

Well, that also didn’t turn out as hoped for.

 

Detail Acrylic Pouring No. 3. I don´t know about you, but I can see a dragon in this one! Can you see it?

 

I was then thinking of painting over the whole canvas (black), so I could use it again for something else.

But somehow I just couldn’t bring myself to annihilate the beauty that was still there, even if it meant to have two incomplete paintings instead of one complete one.

 

What can you see when you look at these pictures?

And are there any things/hobbies you enjoy doing even though their unpredictability kind of scares you?