Acrylic Pouring No 6

I made this card back at Easter time so I can't remember exactly what 'ingredients' I used to make it, but it would have involved inexpensive acrylic paints, Liquitex Pouring Medium, Floetrol or PVA glue, a few drops of hair serum and water.

If you go on YouTube and search for 'Acrylic Pouring', you will find lots of videos and tutorials on how to do this. If you scroll through my earlier attempts at Acrylic Pouring (see sidebar for links) you'll see some basic tutorials and also information on the lady who introduced me to this medium, Annemarie Ridderhof. She now has over 100 video tutorials and experiments on Youtube and I still highly recommend checking her out.

This would have been made on acrylic paper and as with all of my finished pieces, when it's dry I find a section that I can cut out to create a card centrepiece.

On this one, I added some Nuvo Crystal Drops just for some added interest.

Have a groovy weekend, I'm off to play with my old favourites...alcohol inks...Yay!

Acrylic Pouring No 1 (Revisited)

Ahoy and welcome back to my wee bloglet.

A few weeks back I tried my first attempt at Acrylic Pouring but didn't get round to making anything with the dried piece.

Well at last I've finally got my act together and made a couple of cards.

You can read my orginal post here if you wish.

There's something special about acrylic pouring and working with alcohol inks (which I plan to do again soon). I keep going back over pieces that I've made and there always seems to something new to look at, bits I've not spotted before or taken a lot of notice of....(I know, you're thinking 'weirdo'!)

Anyway, there yer have it.

Now go pour some acrylics.

Enjoy xx

Acrylic Pouring No 5

Welcome back to the ol' blog and another attempt at acrylic pouring.

In case you are visiting me for the first time and you're interested in Acrylic Pouring then may I suggest checking out the work & Youtube videos of Annemarie Ridderhof. Annemarie has made over 100 videos, experimenting with a variety of acrylic paint brands, mediums, etc, so if you have time, watch them all. I promise, you'll feel like Annemarie is your best buddy, she has an amazing spirit and a certain 'je ne sais quoi'. I could listen to and watch her create all day.

I actually did this acrylic pour at Easter but have only just got round to turning it into a card. I think you can make out the colours I used, red, orange, yellow, green and white, all cheap acrylics from The Range, except the white which is a Winsor & Newton .

This is my 5th attempt at acrylic pouring so if you look back at my old posts you'll get an idea on how I made this. Annemarie's videos will explain it far better.

To make my card I picked the best portion of my dried pouring and cut a square. I then sliced that piece into 4 sections, added a foam backing to each to give some dimension and stuck to my card base. I finished with some Nuvo Crystal Drop dots.

There's something really satisfying about acrylic pouring....I love it!

Acrylic Pouring No 4

Ahoy!

It's the weekend...Yay!

I'm still experimenting with Acrylic Pouring, following the techniques of the amazing Annemarie Ridderhof on YouTube. 

My pour on this card was made with cheap acrylic paint in red, black, and white, PVA glue, water and hair serum that contains dimethicone.

If you're not familiar with acrylic pouring then I really encourage you to check out Annemarie's YouTube channel where she experiments with all sorts of 'potions' to get the effect below...the cells.

 Basically you need acrylic paint, opaque & transparent colours, a medium to thin the paint so that it pours well and doesn't flake when dry (eg Liquitex Pouring medium, Floetrol, PVA glue), small amount of water to also help with the flow of paint and silicone (dimethicone). The silicone helps in creating the cell effect. You can get silicone spray but if you look at some hair products, they contain the same ingredient (dimethicone) and it smells much nicer.  I use a 99p hair serum from Home Bargains.

A cheap blow torch, the sort you use with Creme Brules, also helps in creating the cell effect.

Annemarie has over 100 videos with lots of techniques and experiments and she shows how much paint and medium to use. It is trial and error as different acrylic paint brands can react differently, but the important thing is that it's great fun!

I added some streaks of Silver Moondust from Nuvo for some glittery highlights.

The best bit is that 100% of your final card or canvas is totally your own work, an original work of art.

Acrylic Pouring No 3

Welcome back to my 3rd attempt at acrylic pouring. You can see my previous attempts (1 & 2) by clicking on the Acrylic Pouring link in the Labels section in the sidebar.

For this pour I used 2 cheapie blues (above), a Winsor & Newton white, Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and hair serum (for the dimethicone / silicone ingredient).

The initial pour, which was the 'flip-cup' method was perfect...beautiful patterns, colour mix and cells.

Here are some close up photos....but...

 ... it's when I tilted the paper, which was just a regular piece of acrylic paper, that things went wrong and that's where I'm still learning. When the mix spread across the paper, the cells stretched and disappeared and the colours merged together (see above). It was just a blue-splodgy mess.

Fear not...all was not lost. The paint left over in my cup looked amazing and there was enough left to pour out a mini piece.

And here it is..... 

Because it was a smaller piece of paper to fill and therefore less tilting to get the paint to cover it, the patterns remained and cells stayed put.

These are tiny cards, 4 x 4 inch, that I managed to make from the tiny pour.

I love the ocean feel.

Still learning and still loving these experiments.

Acrylic Pouring No 2

Coooooooooeeeeeey!

Me again....and I'm back with another Acrylic Pouring and this time I've made the finished pourings into cards.

Regular stalkers of my wee bloglet may recall my first attempt at acrylic pouring and the amazing Annemarie Ridderhoff who has inspired thousands off us to give this technique a go (see post here).

Annemarie now has over 100 videos on YouTube and I highly recommend starting at the beginning to see how to start. You will learn about all of the 'ingredients' needed and measurements.  You don't have to watch them all...but....trust me... you will eventually. It's fascinating and highly addictive.

I used 4 colours...3 mega cheapies (pink, purple & gold) and a decent quality white. You need a mix of opaque and transparent paints. Hopefully you can see how much paint I used in each cup. I added Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and a squeeze of a hair product containing Dimethicone (...again, check out Annemarie's videos re dimethicone, which is a type of silicone, used to create the cells, like bubbles). I use a hair product instead of silicone spray as it smells nicer and silicone spray can be toxic if you breathe it in.

Once my paints are mixed in their individual cups to the perfect consistency, I add them one by one, starting with the white, into a fresh cup. I then trickled the paint around my piece of acrylic paper. You can use anything you like, Yupo, canvas, card, stones, shells...whatever you wish to cover. The sky's the limit. I then tipped the paper about, allowing the paints to flow. 

Can you see the cells? That's what the dimethicone / silicone does to the paint...creates those kinda cell / bubble effects.

If you then add heat from a blow torch (cheap creme brule torch), as I did in the photo above, you get even more tinier cells.

Once dry, I cut up my paper and created 4 card centrepieces.

 Here's one of them, it's a 6x6 inch card... 

...and here's another, same measurements.

I had a thinner strip left so cut that up and made 2 4x4 inch cards.

I will add sentiments to the smaller cards as and when they are needed. The backgrounds will be suitable for all sorts of occasions, plus I think it's sometimes nice to frame cards if they are original works of art.

Now, go and make yourself a cuppa and snuggle down for a marathon of Annemarie Ridderhoff videos. 

Enjoy!!

Acrylic Pouring No 1

 Something a bit different from me today ... Acrylic Pouring.

I recently discovered an amazing lady from Holland called Annemarie Ridderhof and her brilliant Acrylic Pouring tutorials on YouTube. Annemarie is one of those artists who 'gives' constantly. A lot of artists won't share their techniques or answer questions. Annemarie gives everything, she goes over and over her technique, answers everyones questions and even tries out experiments on behalf of us crafters to save us the expense of things going wrong. She is one of those people that makes this world a better place and I can't thank her enough for sharing her knowledge.

I really do encourage you to check out her YouTube videos if you're interested in giving this a go.

Now before I go any further I must tell you that I haven't mastered this technique yet, I'm getting there but I have a way to go before I perfect it. Eventually I hope to make some canvas wall art and cards with my finished pieces ... at least that's the plan.

Prepare yourself for an initial outlay for tools, paints, mixatives and accessories and prepare BIG TIME to get messy. There are lots of variations on materials used, lots of experimenting with alternative products, so if you are going to give this a go, check out all of the available videos first before you dash out and spend your hard earned cash. 

In my experiment I used a decent brand of white acrylic and 3 cheap coloured brands. (Check out the videos regarding using opaque & transparent colours). I put a squirt of each colour paint into a plastic cup and then added Liquitex Pouring Medium, water and hair serum to each cup and stirred until I had a fluid stream of liquid. I then poured a bit of each colour, white first, into a fresh cup..a bit of white, then each colour, then repeated until I'd used up all of my paint.

I then put my piece of Yupo (you can use a canvas, wood, MDF, etc...) over the top of my cup, CAREFULLY flipped it over and placed it onto my make-shift drip tray (which is a cheap, foil, meat tray with 5 upside down plastic cups on which to balance my paper...the idea being that the paint can drip off the sides).

Leave the cup in place for a short while, wait for the paint to drop inside, then lift...et voila! (The photo above).

Wait and watch those cells (bubble-looking effect) appear. You then blow torch the paint and encourage more cells to be produced (photo above). This is what the hair serum is supposed to create. Hair serum is a cheap / nicer smelling alternative to sillicone / dimethicone.

Now it's at this stage that I am still learning, as now you are supposed to tilt the Yupo, or whatever you are using, and allow the paint to spread around. For some reason I am losing those beautiful cells as the paint stretches....Grrrr. I am getting a beautiful pattern but what I'm aiming for is a pattern AND cells (a stetched version of the 'spotty' photo above). 

I decided to mix up some more yellow, brown and white, with a tad more serum, and streaked it across the Yupo, blow torched it again and managed to get a 'lacing' effect in the yellow patch at the bottom.

I then totally lost my mind and sprinkled some silver glitter.

Here's a close up of one portion.

So it's early days in my experimenting with Acrylic Pouring, it's frustrating, but when I finally 'get it' the reward will be huge as the results can be breathtaking.

If you fancy giving this a go, check out Annemarie Ridderhof on YouTube and join the Acrylic Pouring Basics page on Facebook where we all encourage each other.