Paint by Number

This past week was my first official week of summer break and that pretty much consisted of sleeping and painting. And going to the bathroom whenever I want, that was pretty sweet.

The first series of paintings I did was based on the playbills and posters for some of my favorite musicals. I plan to put them in my classroom to open a dialogue about difficult issues that teenagers face like:   

loving yourself, interracial relationships, 

immigration, political scandals,

families, mental illness,

puberty, abuse,

and of course witchcraft.

Thanks to way too much free time those paintings were finished sooner than I predicted so I needed something else to occupy my hands while I watch reality TV. I had a request to complete some marbled paintings. These are done using a technique called acrylic pour or dirty cup pour or lots of combinations of those words. I call it cupping and let's be real, I'm Michael Phelps.

One of my friends mentioned that these paintings look kind of like geodes and I LOVE the geode trend. I have received a lot of interest in these and I am considering opening an Etsy shop when I get back but I have to let you guys in on a little secret...it's not hard. I promise you can do it.

All you do is pour some acrylic paint into a cup somewhat strategically. I like to do circles or half and half, squiggles when I'm feeling fancy. Then you hold the canvas over the cup, flip both over and wait a second for the paint to all fall to the canvas. I normally sing one show tune during this time just to be safe. Once you remove the cup you do have to tilt the canvas to move the paint around and cover the space. That part is admittedly pretty annoying. You will probably have to refill your cup, for smaller areas I use a shot glass, no joke, sometimes I get bored and move the paint where I want it with my fingers. Once you have the canvas covered you better be prepared to WAIT. I would say a solid 24 hours for sure. It is a thick layer of paint so it takes awhile to dry. Other sources recommend giving it a week to dry. 

Pros

• easy (I promise it won't look terrible unless you pick ugly colors.)
• if you don't like a pour you can cover it with another cup
• looks (somewhat) professional according to my Facebook friends
• can make several canvases in the same style to cover a larger space

Cons

• takes 5 years to dry (that is my standard unit for anything that takes too long)
• uses A LOT of paint (paint costs money)
• kind of messy, you need a big area to hold the canvas over because it will drip off the sides
• frustrating to get the painting to spread where you need it to go

If anyone wants to try it I am happy to give advice, or if you would rather pay me to do it, it would be my pleasure.

This is the other painting I do a lot. My friends refer to them as the love birds but love is stupid so I just think of them as the birds with weak neck muscles that cause them to lean on each other. This is on 3 separate canvases and these are surprisingly simple to make too. More difficult than cupping and you definitely get better with practice but I have painted like 10 of these now and they get easier for me every time. And you can add more birds as needed, I made my grandmother one with a bird for every grandchild. She has yet to hang it up...maybe she only wanted a Rachel bird? I also painted one with a baby bird in between for a friend's baby shower.

Tomorrow I am going to attempt something similar, one tree silhouette over a rainbow background. Sometimes I get lazy and don't feel like pouring out my paint and washing my brushes but at the end of the day, paint is like 30 cents a bottle and therapy is 40 dollars a session, my hands are tied.