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
24
Is using silicone really better? Do we really have to torch? Comparing two low cost acrylic pour techniques using Folk Art Brand Paint with and without silicone and no dangerous torching!

I often get asked if I can show how I would create a painting using less expensive craft paints.  Last week I did a demonstration using Anita’s All Purpose Acrylic Paints.  These were inexpensive and easy to use.  I had some beautiful results, and after finishing the piece off with epoxy resin, it was spot on.  This week I am trying out Folk Art Paints by PLAID.

PLAID makes a lot of excellent craft products from Mod Podge to glues to different craft paints like the Folk Art and Apple Barrel.  According to their website, the Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints are UV stable and stay true indoors and outdoors.  I sent a request for more information regarding how light fast the paint is and below is what they responded to me with:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your inquiry. FolkArt Acrylic Colors and FolkArt Outdoor Paint
Pigments have been rated highly resistant to fading.

Paints are rated on a light-fastness scale that runs from 1 to 5.

1=Excellent
2=Very good
3=Good
4=Fair
5=Poor

All of the FolkArt Acrylic Colors and FolkArt Outdoor Paints are rated Excellent or
Very Good (1 or 2). These paints are made from some of the purest pigment available,
which results in its superior quality.
Unfortunately, FolkArt Paints do not contain any U/V inhibitors.
Thank you for contacting Plaid,

EP

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

In addition to the paints I am often asked if torching a paint is really necessary.  Well, I am in no place to decide what an artist does to create their work so I can’t really say what is necessary.  The two pours done in the video are both excluding a torch.  There are times when I will try it but in most cases I don’t torch simply because I don’t want to torch.

For the video attached, I did two different pours.  The first pour was a request to use one of my recipes using Floetrol, paint, alcohol, and silicone.  I did this painting with no intention of torching the paint as I wanted to show how you can get an overload of cells without adding heat to the paint.  The second pour is using one of my recipes that I use a lot.  The recipe used was simply Floetrol, Paint, and alcohol.  Both give unique results, and it is really up to the artist to decide what they like.   Below I have a list of the products I used as well as the recipes I used to create them.  Both of these pieces are available on my Etsy page which supports the YouTube channel.

Recipe 1 – 6X6 Square Panel (These panels I create myself)

  • 25ml Floetrol
  • 15ml  paint
  • 5ml 91% alcohol
  • A spray of silicone in each color then stirred.

For this recipe, I used these measurements for each color.  The total amount of fluid was roughly 200ml or almost 1 cup of paint.  Additionally, I added one last spray of silicone to the top of the dirty cup before flipping it over. I wanted this painting to have a TON of cells.

Recipe 2 – 10 inch circular panel. (These panels I also create and are available on my etsy page)

  • 25ml Floetrol
  • 15ml  paint
  • 5ml 91% alcohol

This recipe is fairly straight forward.  One tip is to add your alcohol last as it will evaporate quickly. It also seems to work a little better if the paint is poured out rather than flipped.  I like the look of ribbons and smaller cells.  They tend to give more of a planetary look than a organism look.

Materials Used:

These two pieces are available to purchase on my Etsy page – https://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyClarkArt

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
15
Acrylic Pouring Painting A Letter J for my boy James – Triple Cup Dirty Pour

Tonight my son James and I hung out and worked on his letter J.  The kids are all really excited about hanging their own artwork on their walls and I am thrilled I get to do it with them.   Just like the last two pours, we did a three cup pour for the letter J.  The difference with this pour was that we used all primary colors to get a ton of mixed colors.  The best part was changing up how much was in each cup to get more purples or oranges or greens.  James had a great time and the piece is going to look great when it dries.

For the recipe we did the following in each cup:

2 ounces Flood Floetrol
10 mls of alcohol
20 mls of paint

The paints were added to three separate cups and then poured over the canvas.  Very little was done to manipulate the panel.  Below is a list of the ingredients we used:

May
06
Creating Cells with Color Shift Paints in an Acrylic Pour.

This weekend Zoe and I have been playing with some new paint.  Last night we made a piece using Color Shift Paints and we rather liked the results.  So today we thought we would share with our YouTube Channel how we did the pour.  The receipe we used was rather simple.

In each cup add the following:

  • 2 Parts Paint
  • 2 Parts GAC 800
  • 1 Part 91% Alcohol.
  • 5 to 10 drops silicone

People have asked why I use alcohol and it is really just preference.  You can use water I just know that the alcohol works for me and I like it.  Additionally the alcohol can help act as a dispersing agent with the silicone. Once these pieces have dried and we have coated them in resin Zoe wants to put them on my Etsy page.  Of course they won’t be $2500 like she asked but they will be for sale.

Below is a list of the products we used with links to where they can be purchased:

 

May
05
Time lapse resin painting using interference paints over a dried cure.

Sometimes when I create a piece I have every intention of it coming out right.  Unfortunately this is not reality.  In this video I take a piece I previously painted and give it new life with another resin pour.  What I like most is that some of the original color does peek through the paint.  Its sort of a happy mistake.

Here are the products that I used:

If you want to see more of my videos please visit my You Tube Channel – http://www.youtube.com/DannyClarkart

May
04
Without using silicone, alcohol or water we created plenty of cells in an acrylic pour.

I have really enjoyed using Floetrol as a pouring medium.  It seems to do a pretty good job and stands up well under resin.  One thing I have noticed is that floetrol over older paint is not as forgiving.  In this video Zoe and I do a quick demo of an acrylic pour only using Golden Fluid Acrylic and Floetrol.

The recipe was pretty simple.  I used 1 ounce of floetrol to about 20 drops of fluid acrylic.  Below is a list of the items we used in the demonstration.

May
03
Triple Pour with Lots of Cells – Latest Video.

This weekend I tried something a little different with my test canvases. I did a dirty pour with three flip cups, and I think it turned out OK. Below is a video from my YouTube channel with all the details. Additionally, I coated the piece in Art Resin.

 

Eventually, the piece will be available on my Etsy Page that I was finally able to setup. I am busy with so much other that stuff it seems like I am moving in slow motion. The Etsy shop is pretty much where these little test pieces reside. Otherwise, they collect dust in my house. So check it out and buy something will ya!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyClarkArt

As always here is a list of the ingredients I used to create this piece. I hope this inspires you to try it out. It’s not hard just sometimes messy!

Floetrol — http://amzn.to/2qqusJ7
Silicone — http://amzn.to/2qwgceR
91% Alcohol – http://amzn.to/2qws7cq
Golden Hansa Yellow Medium – http://amzn.to/2qCBh6B
Golden Titan Buff – http://amzn.to/2pW7eKM
Golden Raw Umber – http://amzn.to/2p6JUWH
Golden Quinacridone Magenta – http://amzn.to/2qCF3g6
Golden Cerulean Blue – http://amzn.to/2pGdYLV
Art Resin – http://amzn.to/2p3SdSn

Apr
26
Testing out the Pebeo Discovery Sets and not making a terrible mess!

photo-apr-26-2-40-01-pm.jpg

 

Over the weekend my lovely wife gave me three sets of Pebeo paints to play with.  There were three kits, each with their own specific purpose.   The tree kits are listed below with links.  For more information about Pebeo and what they have to offer go check out Pebeo.com.  They have a ton of different types of paints and I can’t wait to try them all!

The first kit I played with was the Vitrial set.  The colors included were Crimson, Lemon, Orange, Chartreuse, Sky Blue and Gold.  All the paints are mixable so you can make your own custom color.  I need to get some thinner but the look you get is of a stained glass.    They were really easy to play with and I had no problem getting them mixed.

The second set I used was the Fantasy Prism.  There were 12 different colors in this kit.  My favorite was Eggshell White.  The paints create a honeycomb effect.  I think they are intended to be used alongside the Moon Fantasy but can be used alone too.

The third set I used was the Fantasy Moon.  This set also came with 6 colors and they were sort of a two toned paint.  I liked the way they went down on the panel but they were really tough to get mixed appropriately.  They give a hammered metal look that is quite nice.

In the following video I put together a quick little abstract piece using each of the paints and finished off with a gentle spatula swipe.  I really liked the look of the paints and how they reacted.  After about 3 days it dried to a beautiful glossy look that is much like a resin piece.

Photo Apr 26, 12 32 43 PM

 

Here is a list of the items I used:

Pebeo Vitrail Discovery Set  —  http://amzn.to/2oNeUuJ
Pebeo Fanstasy Moon Set –  http://amzn.to/2oxBj35
Pebeo Fantasy Prism Set – http://amzn.to/2pj7U9Y

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