Art Experiment, Liquitex Pourable medium combined with paint and poured on canvas

Art Experiment is a a series of posts using supplies which I own but have rarely (or never) used. Failure or success is not important, it is trying something different and seeing what can come from it.  There are three goals: try something new, use something in my supply stash, and have fun/experiment in the studio.

After using some Liquitex Pourable medium as a top coat last week, I went on YouTube to see videos where artists were using it mixed with paint and poured on canvas. YouTube is a dangerous place and it really made me want to try this technique, which means I needed another bottle of this medium, since the 1/2 bottle I had remaining was not going to be enough.

My first experiment I did in the backside of a wood panel. I painted the interior white and the edges black.  I added a bit of paint in different squirt bottles, a mix of about 90% medium to 10% paint, but I just eye-balled it (I did not measure anything).

I poured in a few puddles of color, then tilted and turned the piece to have the colors move. This is what it first looked like.  As the colors continued to move, it looked almost all orange.

 After it dried for a day, I added a second coat. Here are my puddles before tilting.

I used quite a bit of clear medium, I was hoping for the first layer to show through in a lot of places but as you can see in the next picture that did not happen. I'm a little sad since it did look better with only the first coat.

The next day I moved outside to work with pouring the medium over the canvas.  I put some rods across my work table, then a plastic painting drop cloth.  The medium pulls off of plastic pretty easily, but adding the rods helps so the medium doesn't puddle around the canvases.

I did use a lot of clear medium (without paint) on a lot of these pieces. I put puddles on the canvas, then lifted it and tilted it so the paint would run.

I added some drips. I should have waited a bit to do this as they ran a lot after I took this photo. Also, my plastic drop cloth blew over this piece and it pulled off some of the dried medium, and basically ruined it.

Blues and black, and clear

Lots of colors and clear

After making quite a few canvases, I had a lot of colored medium on my table. It looked interesting so I smushed some canvases into it to pick up the colored medium. I really enjoyed doing it and the results were interesting. By the way, I made a mess during this whole process. Not only on my table, but on myself and my clothes. It can probably be done inside if you are careful, but I enjoy not having to worry about it so I just work outside instead.  I think I would probably wear disposable gloves though.  This stuff was sticky, and it was like peeling dried Elmer's glue off your hands.

The big one is a poured piece. I think it looks very interesting. The small one in the left corner is one I smushed into the paint on the table, then I tilted it so it ran down the piece.

Here are some pictures of the final pieces.

Using the pouring method:

Smushing into the leftover paint/medium on the table:

Closeup.

I like them all. I really enjoyed smushing pieces in the paint puddle and seeing how they would turn out.  I also like the broad areas of color on the poured pieces. I am thinking of using the 6" x 6" square ones, which are a little boring, as backgrounds for a fabric collages.