How to Acrylic Pour (for beginners)
I know I'm a bit late to the party with this one but it's still a cool way to make some crazy art and the best part is that it's so easy (and cheap). You can use some pretty intense techniques to go the extra mile with this but for now I'm just going for a basic tutorial of how to do a standard acrylic pour. Once we've done that I'm going to be adding some extra steps for some really crazy art in the future.
If you're just here to see a video of how it's done then skip to the end of this post and you can pretty much gather what's going on. I also apologise for the shakiness of my camera... it was the first time I used it.
What you'll need:
- Something to pour over (usually a canvas but this can be any flat surface really)
- A range of fluid acrylic paints (any colours you would like to work with)
- A pouring medium (I've been told the best medium is
Liquitex Professional Pouring Medium but I used PVA glue) - Disposable cups
- 1 sturdy cup
- Palette knives are great to spread the paint to make sure you cover right to the edges but I just used wooden skewers.
Step 1: Setup
You're going to be making a huge mess right now so you want to realllly make sure to put plastic sheets down all over the area you've chosen to do this. Acrylic paint is not easy to get out of stuff so be careful.Fill your plastic cups with a mixture of one colour of paint, about an equal amount of PVA/pouring medium and a small amount of water. You want the consistency to be kind of thick, but runny enough to pour easily. Stir this well.
Set your canvas/board raised of the surface but be careful to make sure it's still flat for drying.
Step 2: Pouring
There are two mains ways to do this: straight pours and dirty pours.Straight pouring involves pouring the separate colours onto the canvas one by one and layering as you go. Then you can wait for them to spread themselves or tilt the canvas around until you're happy.
Dirty pouring is where you add all the colours into one cup at once and pour it over the canvas, then tilt the canvas around until the whole base is covered.
I sort of did a combination of the two but 90% a dirty pour. I just added blobs of certain colours on top after.
There really isn't a wrong way to do this, I'm just giving you a place to start.
So, pick all the colours you're feeling- in my experience oranges and yellows dry the most vibrant but anything goes with this type of painting. Pour them carefully one by one into a firm cup and put a small layer of the PVA between each colour (unsure if this is a necessary step but I did it).
Once you've got this how you want it, simply pour it over the canvas and tilt it until all the edges are covered. You may need to pour a bit more over so it can be completely covered like I had to. The other way to do this is put the canvas upside down over the top of the cup and flip it. Then you can lift the cup up and watch it all ooze around which is a really satisfying method (but potentially messy)
Don't forget you're not limited to one cup! Feel free to use multiple ones and watch them combine and do some crazy things.
Step 3: Adjusting
You might not be completely satisfied with how it looks at first which is fine, because it can all be changed.
You might need to use a palette knife or some kind of tool to spread the paint around where you want it. Additionally, you may need to use a flame to pop some of the bubbles which may occur or to create specific cells. I'm pretty sure I got to the point of just using my fingers to adjust it all by the last painting.
Once you're happy with how it looks, leave it flat until the paint is fully dry.
This probably won't take as long as you expect but you want to leave it until completely dry.
Step 4: Varnishing
When mine had dried I noticed they were much duller than I expected so I went over with a THICC layer of PVA glue.Once that had dried it really brought out the bright pigment in the paint.
Once this has dried you're all done, here's what some of my finished products looked like once dry.
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