A Primarily Primary Color Pour

I don’t usually gravitate toward traditional colors, it’s rare that I’ll use more than one primary color in a pour. But this week, as I was walking through the paint aisle of the craft store I found several colors that were just really doing it for me. And yes, I do realize that green is not a primary color, but it’s just such a pretty shade.

Supplies I Used: 

• DecoArt Americana in Cool White, Bright Yellow, Bright Green, Bright Blue, and Red Alert
• Canvas
• Plastic Cups
• Plastic straws
• Toothpick

 

Maybe it’s because it was such a classic combination of colors or the vibrancy, but this simple scheme was really exciting to me. But because I’m me, I’ve always got to do something a little out of the box. A few weeks ago I did a little tie-dye project with some friends and wondered if I could recreate that blurred edge effect with air manipulation and the right kind of pour technique, since I was already experimenting with these innocent colors I decided to double down and give in to my experimentation temptation. 

For what I was picturing in my head I thought a puddle pour would be my best bet. Part of my inspiration came from a puddle pour video I saw on this blog a while ago by Deborah Dougherty, her Kaleidoscope pour. I thought the way she created the lines within the puddles would help to create those blurred tie-dye lines. I’d never done many puddle pours and I knew I would risk some muddy colors if I layered my paints wrong so I tried my best to keep color theory in mind while pouring

I really loved the little blob I created and thought for a minute that I should just keep adding to it until it took over the whole canvas, but I’ll save that for another pour. I was on a mission! With my tooth pick I started to drag lines from the center of the blob all the way through to the blank parts of the canvas. 

From there I took my straw and started to blow gently on the edges of the paint as well as the lines I’d created to make that blurry tie-dye effect. I added a bit more paint to my puddle and drew some extra lines, used my straw a bit more and then started to tilt to cover the rest of the canvas.

While it isn’t exactly what I had envisioned when I started this pour, I’ve got to say, I am really excited about what I got. I managed to avoid mud and got a lot of interesting color combinations with all these bright, fun colors. The little lines that run through the puddle are a new look in a pour that I think is something I’ll be employing in different pours in the future. 

I’ll definitely be trying this again, maybe with slightly runnier paint consistency or a different tactic for air manipulation. I’ll also be giving primary colors more of a fair shake from now on when it comes to choosing my color schemes.