Smiling Over Spilled Paint

I have always loved the look of Italian paper marbling.  As a child I would collect old books, fancy pencils, book marks... whatever I could find that had marbling.

Even now I'm not much over my little obsession.  So you could imagine that I would be totally infatuated with the new "Pour Painting" techniques.  The only reason I hadn't embraced the art was that it seemed really wasteful of paint and I just couldn't go there.

But when the DAC (Downtown Artist Co-op) had a workshop with a really good price, I jumped on the chance to learn.  Himself had to drive me to the class as my eye was still healing from the injury I told you about last time... so he was able to take photos for me.  Good thing~ my hands were quickly a MESS!

I found it is not nearly as paint wasteful as I thought.  However, when you tell a Scots woman to be frugal, that's what you get!  See that little circle of paint at the top?  

I was a wee bit too frugal!

Splat!  Better that time!

First I smeared it around.

Then it got the tilt treatment.

Next I blew it around with a straw.

Just a wee bit more to get it over the edges...

... oh so carefully!

And here's the finished piece!  Do you see the little dragon in it?

Repeating the process.  We made two 4x6 canvas pours and one 8x10 canvas pour.

This time I jigged around with a skewer instead of blowing with a straw.  I liked that better.

Using the skewer to drag color up into the white paint.

Tilt time!

Piece number two... with more dragons!  (Himself says I have dragons on the brain...)

And finally my large canvas.

I did a lot of dragging the paint cup this time.  I wanted to try a different technique with each canvas.

No dragon this time.  Definitely a flying fox (bat).

I really, really wish I had stopped here!

What a beautiful mess!

And here is my final piece.

I am absolutely hooked on this.  It takes a lot more skill and planning than you'd think, which I love.  Later on the instructor is going to have a class on how to make the paints (you've got to add stuff to make it flow easily and to make those cells/bubbles that are soooo cool).  I've already told her I want to take that class too!

A table of pour paintings set out to dry.