Sep
26
Direct Reflection of 365 Days.

Officially it has been a little over a year since Hurricane Harvey impacted my family. It has honestly been a long year with insurance, schools, growing up, growing older, staying focused, and self-care. Unfortunately on the list of life ingredients self-care has been one of my last items. My avoidance of self-care is not intentional but an unfortunate truth.

Self-care is incredibly important, and I am easily swayed to do something else besides taking care of myself. The combination of starting graduate school and being displaced by Hurricane Harvey all in the same week was never something I planned. However, I continue to look at the situation as a learning opportunity rather than a barrier to success in both my degree and my creative life.

What I have learned most is that I love research. I am presently working on my clinical masters of social work and have found creativity to be thriving throughout this journey. Art therapy, play therapy, creative writing, and even research have creativity pouring from its veins. There is creativity in how I work with clients, how I speak to someone else’s truth and autonomy, and how I can be an agent of change.

My YouTube videos have always been a lot of fun to create and share. My original intent was to share what I create with my kids. My intention has never changed, and I plan to do more videos but with a slight modification. I want to share what I have learned about self-reflection and purpose when creating art. The importance of art has less to do with the “how” and more to do with the “why” I am creating art. This new direction is my self-care plan.

I encourage everyone to reflect on what they genuinely love to do and find a way to make that an essential part of your day. Find what makes the heart happy and when fear wells up, look into the eyes of the beast and create something that fear has no choice but to take pause and smile.

 

The image above is a look into my watercolor journal.  I play a lot with color and love to see how colors will work together much like music works together.  There is so much you can do with watercolor!

Jul
16
Zoe Playing with Funnel’s in a Fluid Acrylic Pour.

Both my younger kids James and Zoe love to make videos and love to watch YouTube.  After much deliberation we decided to go ahead and create a channel dedicate to kids making stuff and having fun teaching.  The above linked video is from their channel and I hope you will subscribe and give them a little love.  They are super excited!

My youngest Zoe has been wanting to try making a fluid acrylic pour using a funnel.  I have not ever done this so I told her it would be a great technique for her to learn.  Over the next series of videos, Zoe will be perfecting, testing and sharing what she learns.

Having an opportunity to set Zoe free and let her learn a technique based on her own experience is a gift.  I encourage everyone to be brave and try new things.  It is helpful to understand the basics, but there is a point where learning for yourself is more important.  It not only builds confidence, but it also builds tolerance and empathy for other.

In the video, I mixed all the paints for Zoe beforehand.  Each color uses a simple recipe that I have used many times before.  Below is a link to the ingredients and the recipe for each color:

Ingredients:

  • Golden Fluid Acrylic – Teal
  • Golden Fluid Acrylic – Ultramarine Violet
  • Golden Fluid Acrylic – Phthalo Blue
  • Jacquard Lumiere – 555 Halo Pink Gold
  • 91% Rubbing Alcohol
  • Flood Floetrol
  • B’Laster Silicone Spray
  • Small 2 ounce funnel
  1. Mix carefully 1 part paint to 2 parts floetrol.  This needs to be well incorporated before adding any alcohol.
  2. Add 91% alcohol to the mix to thin the paint further.  This is a personal preference and is solely based on how YOU want the paint consistency.  You can substitute the alcohol for distilled water.  We use alcohol because it dries faster and reduces cracks.
  3. Just before the paint is used spray one shot of silicone in your paint mix and gently stir.

You can follow the video on how Zoe setup and poured in the funnel.

Jun
09
8 Year Old Artist Zoe, Painting and Teaching Kindness

Recently I have been asked to give my opinion on what is considered art and what is not. This conversation was specifically geared to those that enjoy acrylic pouring. Hopefully this video will show where I stand and what is really important about creativity.  We all have a responsibility to be kind in this world especially when our children mirror our own behavior.  Feel free to share the kindness of Zoe as much as you want.

Thank you Zoe for being so incredibly inspirational.

 

You can support our YouTube channel by visiting our Etsy shop where we have art created in these videos available for sale. https://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyClarkArt

For my larger pieces please contact us for details on availability and pricing.

Jun
02
How to make your own Fluid Acrylic Paint

While I love the rich pigment of a Golden Fluid Acrylic, I have been asked numerous times about making fluid acrylic paints. So I started looking into it more and found a solution that might be helpful. In no way is this a replacement for something as professional as Golden’s Fluid Acrylics, it is a less expensive alternative.

I got the idea for this recipe while making ebru paintings with my kids. When you paint with water, you have to add a surfactant to the paint for it to glide across the top of the water. Usually, we add ox gall or photo flow to the paint to give it some move-ability. I also had a bottle of Golden’s Acrylic Flow Release which is a paint additive for water painting. Golden now called is Wetting Fluid and can be used to wet your canvas before applying paint. So without getting too wordy here is how I mixed my paint to create a simple fluid acrylic.

This is a mixture created by weight and volume.

Part ONE – Diluting the Acrylic Flow Release (Slippery Water)

  • 16 oz Distilled water
  • 0.5 oz Acrylic Flow Release or Photo Flo

Mix the ingredients carefully and let sit for at least 25 hours, so there is no sudden foaming. The Acrylic Flow Release is an irritant and should be handled carefully with proper protection.

Part TWO – Making the Fluid Acrylic

  • 30g (by weight) medium bodied acrylic
  • 20g Slippery Water

Slowly add the slippery water to the paint and mix well. Do not mix vigorously just make sure that all the solution incorporates in the paint. If this is done in 10g increments, you will get a smoother result. Add more slippery water as desired to get a more fluid color.

Store your fluid acrylic in an airtight container and use it for any number of applications. In the video attached I use this recipe to create a fluid acrylic pour on a wood panel using four different brands of medium-bodied paint.

Links to the products I used in the video:

 

Good luck and always do what makes your heart happy!

May
25
Artistic creative block – Taking advantage of the quantum mind

Sometimes I get into a little rut and have just to step back and let the universe tell me what it wants me to do. It is always amazing how these creative moments strike. Sometimes they arrive in the middle of the night, and others just happen right before my eyes.

In the future, I hope to research more about creativity specifically how it influences addiction and recovery. I have been on both sides of the effects, and I can say it has almost killed me and saved my life. Recently I read two fascinating books on creativity and the mind. One such book was by Amit Goswami called Quantum Creativity. Dr. Goswami is a pretty interesting guy and has a subtle way of actually explaining quantum physics and the influence it has on creativity. The book was a great read for me and propelled my interest in how the creative mind works. Below I have a link to his book and his website.

The second book I read was by one of my favorite authors Dr. David Gelertner, a mastermind in the world of multiprocessing, artificial intelligence and creative thinking. Dr. Gelertner wrote The Tides of Mind which is a beautiful voyage through the levels of consciousness. This book has heavily influenced my Dreamers series of abstract paintings. Overall the book covers the spectrum of the mind from extreme consciousness to deep sleep. Knowing where ideas come from and its parallels to Dr. Goswami make these two books a must read back to back.

Creative block can be a real nightmare. These two books have helped me cope and be more patient with myself when the time arrives just to sit back and watch. Additionally, I have been told by other great artists that sometimes you need just to let go and put paint on something. This advice has always been helpful and recently I experienced the effects in a simple set of pieces I created. I called these painting tiny abstracts. I wasn’t trying to force anything to happen, and I didn’t think of much when I was painting. The end results were these small 4X6 acrylic paintings that spoke to me. What they told me was just to relax, pause, and the universe will show me what it wants me to create.

You can learn more about Dr. Amit Goswami and is website  http://www.amitgoswami.org/

The two books mentioned can be found here at Amazon:

The Tides of Mind  by Dr. David Gelertner – http://amzn.to/2qk6Z8Q

Quantum Creativity by Dr. Amit Goswami – http://amzn.to/2rZsADU

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