What is Fluid Art?
Fluid art (also known as paint pouring) seems extremely simple on the surface: pour different paints onto a canvas, manipulate the paint (e.g., by tilting the canvas, spinning it on a spinner or Lazy Susan, blowing the paints with a hair dryer, a straw or your mouth, etc.), and voila! A unique piece of artwork is created in less than fifteen minutes. Easy peasy, right?
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Well, on the surface, yes. I certainly fell for that "simplicity", and I can tell you, within a day of trying my own hand at it, I was very quickly disabused of that idea.
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This idea of simplicity with fluid painting has gained traction in the last few years as it is very easy to watch fluid artists on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok create gorgeous and amazing pieces of art in a very short amount of time. While there are many fans and supporters of this art form, there are a growing number of critics who claim that fluid art is not an art form, that it really isn't even art because a child playing with paints can do the same thing and create equally lovely pieces. And it's true. Children have been creating masterpieces for as long as art has been around, but there is a difference.
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Any fluid artist can tell you that fluid art is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Much of what is achieved in the final product requires a lot of preparation beforehand (e.g., determining pouring medium recipes, mixing paints, getting appropriate fluid paint consistencies, planning your painting and composition, knowing what technique to use, etc.). There is a lot of science and experimentation involved in order to successfully manipulate fluid paints, duplicate the various processes, and discover new techniques, all so that we can create pieces that you, your friends, and family can enjoy for years to come.
In the Beginning
When I first discovered fluid art about two years ago, my initial thought was, "Wow, that looks simple! I think I can do that." I found myself watching hours of videos of different fluid artists and marveling at their creations. What drew me to it was that unlike other painted art forms, fluid art gives the impression of dynamic movement and flow. It was very rarely ever static. Some paintings even felt alive depending on the angle you looked at it, the way the light hit the paints, the color of the base, or whether metallics or iridescent paints were used.
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Most people who try fluid art start by buying ready-made fluid paints then try to recreate a painting using techniques they had seen on a video. I certainly did this. Amazon was my best buddy when I first started out. There were a host of ready-to-pour paints available, along with pouring mediums, silicone oils, varnishes, extenders...wait, what? What are all these other things? I needed more than just paint? Did I really need all of this stuff? It was easy to get overwhelmed. A newbie could choose to buy each item individually or purchase kits that guaranteed amazing results. These pouring kits came with the paints, silicone and pouring mediums. Some even had small bottles of resin included for when you wanted to finish your masterpiece. It very quickly became clear that paint pouring wasn't quite as simple as it seemed to be.
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My first tries at pouring were far from a success and were, to be honest, embarrassing. More often than not, I found I could not duplicate what I had seen on a video and/or I ended up with mud. Mud is what happens when you mix or manipulate different colors and they are either overworked or don't go together well and you end up with a brownish glop of...something...resembling mud.
Re-watching videos over and over again ended up in confusion and frustration ("I don't understand, she used yellow, then magenta, then gold, white, blue and turquoise and came out with that beautiful sea dragon! I used the same colors and created this, this thing.") I tried adding various pouring mediums. I tried different techniques. But no matter what I did, I couldn't quite recreate what I was watching. I was met with very little success and a lot of disappointment. I started to think it was me, that I was doing something wrong.
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So I decided to take a step back and put on my chemist's hat. Because, as I've found out over the years, there is very little you can't solve without first applying simple scientific principles and trying to understand what the problem actually was.
