Mixing Acrylic Paint For Pouring – When I began my acrylic pouring journey, I was amazed at how many different ways people prepare their liquid acrylic paints. Some had an entire system with multiple products and different ratios for each. None of the recommendations were wrong per se, but they didn’t make sense for starters.
An easy way to make acrylic pour paint is to use one part acrylic paint and mix it with two parts Elmer’s Glue-All or Flootrol Floetrol. Add water a few drops at a time until the consistency is such that when the surface is raised to 1 inch with the stirrer, the paint will flow and form a mound and disappear in a second.
Mixing Acrylic Paint For Pouring
As you can see, mixing acrylic paint doesn’t have to be complicated. We cover everything you need to know, including why we use more liquid paint, what texture and technique they use, common mistakes to avoid when mixing liquid acrylic paint, and more.
But How Much Paint Do I Need To Mix Up For An Acrylic Pour Painting?”
Casting acrylic is an art style in which non-viscous or flowable acrylic paints are combined and manipulated on a painting surface. The texture of the paintings allows the paintings to blend organically, creating an abstract art form.
While there are brands that sell pourable acrylic paints, such as Arteza and Artist’s Loft, many paints need to be mixed and primed with water or another pourable medium to achieve the consistency many artists prefer. Texture of acrylic pouring paint
The consistency of the finished product is probably the most important part of preparing paint for liquid art. Getting the right consistency has the biggest impact on how the paint reacts and is one of the few things you can really control with pourable acrylic paint.
When you first start, you’ll want to try and get the same consistency of paint for every first pour. This provides a perfect starting point for understanding how changing texture affects the outcome of your artwork. How to measure consistency.
How To Thin And Mix Paint For Acrylic Pouring (perfect Consistency)
There are several ways to measure the consistency of liquid acrylic paint. We’ll look at the two that we think are easiest to follow. After many mixed media paintings, many artists say they are learning
The most common we’ve seen is dipping the paint stick into the paint and pulling it out about an inch from the rest of the paint in the tank. Too high and the paint will flow due to the increased height, too low will cause the paint to form a stalagmite/stalactite straight out of the wood.
Let the paint drip back into the tank and see how it reacts with the top coat of paint. We want the paint to drip from the vibrating bar and create a hill and disappear immediately. This stack shouldn’t last more than a second or two.
If the paint is thicker, the catch creates more catches on it than an ice cream cone, then vanishes in 3 to 4 seconds.
How To Create Cells When Acrylic Pouring
If the paint is too thin, the paint dripping onto the stick will appear to be pouring from under the paint, or it will immediately imbed into the surface without forming a clump.
This method is like the drip method in that you want to dip the stick in and also pull it about an inch out of the paint.
With this method, you want to bond a pattern to the painting’s surface, such as an artwork or a snake. Make sure you keep your thumbs off the paint surface.
If the paint is too thick, it will disappear after 4 to 5 seconds. It’s too thin and disappears almost immediately.
Buy Floetrol Paint Additive Pouring Medium For Acrylic Paint
A number of casting mediums can be used to pour acrylic paints. Pouring medium is simply a liquid additive that you use to extend the paint to help change its texture without sacrificing its binding properties (think dry plastic).
In this article, we’ll focus on the three cheapest and easiest pour media available: Elmer’s Glue-All, Flood Floetrol, and water.
Elmer’s Glue-All is just that, glue. The glue is white in liquid form, but clear when dry. It also has the property of being very sticky and resistant when dry. This comes from the fact that it is relatively easy to obtain and usually not expensive, which is exactly the quality of casting medium you should be looking for as a beginner paint blender.
Flootrol Flootrol can be found in most hardware stores in the paint department. This product is to be used with paint to help cut through brush marks and thin the paint slightly for airbrushing. This also contains binders, like the emulsions used in acrylic paints, and dries hard and strong.
Colors Mixing And Dulling When Dried
Finally, water can be used as a medium to thin the paint to the desired consistency. Do not use more than about 30% water to paint or the paint will become so thin it will lose its strength and will peel or warp as it dries. White paint recipes for beginners
Here are some of the more common paint recipes we see today with acrylic paint pourers. Read the next section to learn how these ratios can vary depending on the “body” or thickness of acrylic paint you’re using.
There are four main types of acrylic paint: heavy body, soft body, liquid acrylic, and craft paint. Each type of paint may require slight modifications to the above recommended pour recipe. Soft body acrylics
Most paints that come in metal or plastic tubes or larger containers will be a soft acrylic body. Sometimes these are called medium body acrylics. These look like hot honey squeezed out of a tube or scooped out of a container. The above paint ratios work well for medium body acrylics. Large body acrylics
Acrylic Pour Painting For Beginners With 6 Easy Examples!
Heavy body paints are more like cold honey or toothpaste. They hold their shape once taken out of the container and don’t flatten much. These paints tend to have a higher pigment load (amount of pigment per ounce of paint). If you’re using heavy acrylic, you’ll probably want to increase the ratio to 3:1, 4:1 or more with Glue-All and Floetrol.
Liquid acrylics are specifically designed to flow over soft or heavy acrylics. Unfortunately for us, there are two main types of liquid acrylic. Some are heavily pigmented in premium brands like Liquitex and Golden, and there are cheap liquid acrylics that paint softer bodies with more water.
More expensive liquid acrylics can be mixed at very high pour-to-paint ratios, usually 4:1 or more, while less expensive liquid acrylics, such as those from Loft Artist, should be 2:1. Craft painting
Craft paint is usually a cheaper version of acrylic paint that isn’t pigmented at all. We recommend reducing the ratio to 1:1 and using the glue mix to increase the glue/water ratio to 70% glue to 30% water or 75% glue to 25% water.
What Is Acrylic Pouring? The Painting Technique For Beginners
If you use a higher base to paint on, the colors will be much less vibrant and look very dull compared to other colors done in the recommended proportions.
Looking for more information on acrylic paint brands? Read our research to find the best acrylic spray paint? Paint mixing tips
Here are some tips we’ve learned over the last couple of years for getting the best acrylic potting mix possible.
Don’t forget to check out our 24 Acrylic Pouring Tips and Tricks That Actually Work. Why use distilled or filtered water?
How To Prepare Acrylic Paint For Pouring
You will find that many artists choose to use filtered or distilled water to pour their acrylics. The main reason for this is to reduce microbial changes in the paint.
Mold and mildew can form if the paint dries very slowly or in a place with high humidity in the air. Any mixed paint that is stored for later use sets faster with tap water.
It is not recommended to store mixed paint for more than a few weeks, even if kept in tightly closed containers.
The last piece of advice we want to give you when mixing acrylic paint is to measure the ratio, at least for the first paint.
Acrylic Pouring Recipes And Techniques For Amazing Diy Paintings
Measuring your paint ensures that you get the same paint consistency every time and one less variable to worry about when trying to determine why one paint is different from another.
With experience you can get to the point where you can mix paints that you can’t smell, but until then it’s not measured, it’s your friend.
Pouring acrylic paint is a surprisingly fun art form
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