Acrylic Pour Painting

In its simplest form, acrylic pour painting entails pouring acrylic paint onto a canvas and letting it cover the canvas. The artist can influence the final outcome by determining which colors are used and in what order, by tilting or spinning the canvas so that the paint spreads in different ways, by adding things to the paint (more on this later), and by how they pour the paint onto the canvas (such as pouring from a cup, or from an egg carton, or through a colander, etc.). Unadulterated paint, when poured onto the canvas, generally results in abstract swirls of color. But the real magic happens when something extra is added, like silicone oil, dish soap, paint conditioner, alcohol, etc. After the paint (plus extras) has been poured, heat is applied using a blow drier or a crème brûlée blow torch. This causes deeper levels of paint to bubble up, creating lacey blooms of colors called cells, pearls, or clouds. In a sense, pour painting is more like AI art than traditional art since the artist is creating through the use of a process rather than through skill with a paintbrush.