If you took a look at my last pour you might remember my fascination with this old gold paint I found. I really couldn’t tell you how long I’ve had it, but it was an interesting multi-faceted color that I knew I wanted to do more with. And after finding it I wondered to myself “how many other paints have I squirreled away around this house?” So I went digging around in some shoeboxes and in some old craft bins and came out with my hands full of half used acrylic paint bottles. Now, some of them were DOA, but I did manage to track down two colors that I loved and had a good feeling about.
Supplies I Used:
- Water
- Plastic cups and straws
Since these paints were past their prime and this was largely an experiment on how they would react versus newer paints, and an exercise in “waste not, want not,” I decided to treat it as a bit of a practice round for my tree rings. You know what they say, practice makes perfect! (Eventually, right?)
The paints were all in different states of decay, my gold I knew had an odd habit of separating so it was highly liquid. But these two blue colors had all their own problems, the dark metallic blue I used had all kinds of strange lumps in it, almost like a broth based soup with solid ingredients in it. The lighter, softer blue, had the same consistency of an oil paint and it did not want to come out of the bottle. After a lot of specific TLC for each cup I got everything to be a proper and workable consistency. I was actually really proud of myself!
When I poured my tree ring cup, I noticed that everything really stayed at the surface. Nothing sank down, it was just building a new bull’s eye with every additional pour. Everything was pouring so smoothly I could hardly believe I was working with ancient paints. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I do love the inside of a dirty pour or tree ring cup after the paints are out, and this one was a beauty.
The mess came when I was actually executing my pour. I use mess lovingly here, because even though the paints somehow stopped running smooth as they had individually and just sort of splatted onto the canvas in a tree ring-esque style, what I got could be one of my favorite pours to date.
The dark sparkly blue really took over while the light-light blue offered a kind of background for the old gold and created this interesting graphic to the little paint puddle. Because of how thick everything got I had to start to tilt a bit more aggressively than normal, and boy, am I so glad I tilted!
Check out these magical little flecks of excellence! My little puddle went from blue blob to this complex, gold flecked, painting. As I was tilting the canvas I was also tilting my head, watching everything catch the light and stretch into something completely new. A friend of mine said it looks like the world from the air and I think it looks like some kind of really exotic opal. What really stands out to me about this is that everything isn’t smooth like I’m so used to acrylic paint being, it looks like the metallic flecks made everything a bit more rigid and textured. I’m very excited about this one, guys!
PS Koz is new to the acrylic pouring game but she’s diving right in and has no intentions of looking back! A student of the universe, there is nothing this artist loves more than learning and trying new things. Her other hobbies include reading, foreign language, and salsa dancing.
Stunning!! Usually not a fan of gold, but this has me wishing it was hanging in my pointy stick plant nook AND thinking about picking up some and giving it a whirl ????
I just did my first pour today and I can understand why people gravitate toward this way to create!! It is amazing and like a mystery present. You never know what will be presented with! 🙂 Your pour is proof of that! I’m wondering what recipe you used. Would the alcohol take place of water? I have so many old paints that now I just want to dive in and see what comes!
Thanks, too, for the free course. I found it very helpful!