Playing with Pouring

 My experiments continue with paint pouring and different techniques for manipulating the paint and then adding to it with silkscreens or stencils.  Big thanks to Olga Soby for her wonderful videos that have been a major inspiration.

First up are some pours I did with warm colors and then did stencils on top.  Here’s the one I’m mentally calling Rocket Mandala but that’s my wierd sense of humor.  It’s just a sample piece so I don’t actually have to come up with a real title.

Since I’m planning on doing birds or dancers, next I did an owl on a stump.  I think he really needs a moon in the upper right corner but I’m not sure yet.  That should be decided and done this next week.

These were both done with the ring pour technique for the backgrounds.  While I like the layering of the colors, I don’t think the technique is quite what I want so I started experimenting with blowing the paint around after pouring it.  I have multiple ways to do this and started with a blowdryer and the squeeze bulb I use with alcohol ink.  

This first one was supposed to be a mostly green backgroound with a lighter yellow spot in the middle for a hummingbird stencil.  Unfortunately, the blowdryer I used had a really wide nozzle attachment and blew paint everywhere.  I like the misty layering of the green but want more control.

So next I used the blowdryer on low.  This meant I had to practically touch the surface to get any paint movement so that’s not going to work either.   I tried blowing the paint in a swirl around the center color and that had some interesting effects that I think would look good with dancers.  In Space.

And last I used  my squeeze bulb.  This worked well and gave me good control but made my hand ache afterwards.  Since this was only an 8x8 piece, I need a different thing for larger pieces.

So I am now assembling things to try this week.  Another blow dryer and metal straws for blowing directly on the paint myself.  Here’s hoping I get something that works well.