12 easy acrylic pouring techniques for beginners
Pouring techniques that can be learned quickly and without much effort.
12 easy acrylic pouring techniques for beginners
12 easy acrylic pouring techniques for beginners
Pouring techniques that can be learned quickly and without much effort.
Are you new to acrylic pouring and looking for simple techniques that can be learned quickly?
Here I have 12 pouring techniques especially for beginners, have fun trying them out.
2 colours and 2 pouring cups – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 1
It couldn’t be easier. Take two empty cups, which will later be our pouring cups.
Pour black and white acrylic paint alternately into these two cups so that both cups are filled differently.
So start with white paint in the first cup, then black, etc.
With the second cup, start the other way around, first black paint, then white, etc.
As soon as both cups are filled, pour them onto the canvas in a snake-like pattern.
Now spread the liquid paint by swirling the canvas and your own work of art is ready.
I’ll explain more details about this simple acrylic pouring technique in the video. Have fun trying it out.
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Infinity – Acrylic Pouring Technique for Beginners No. 2
Another beginner-friendly pouring technique is infinity.
We pour the acrylic paint onto the canvas using two cups and circular movements.
For this pouring technique, we need two empty pouring cups in addition to our liquid acrylic paints.
You fill the pouring cups alternately with the colors you like, either each cup in the same order or with different colors and combinations.
Now pour both cups simultaneously onto the canvas in a circular motion, one on top of the other. You have to time it so that you don’t get in each other’s way with the cups.
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The swirl – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 3
For the swirl pouring technique we only need a pouring cup and some nice colors.
In this example I used five colors.
The acrylic paints were diluted with pouring medium.
Now you gradually stack the colors in your pouring cup until you have the amount you need for your canvas.
I explain in detail how to calculate your total amount in my course: Learn acrylic pouring
The swirl technique got its name because we now pour the filled pouring cup onto the canvas and make circular movements.
This causes the paint to run onto the canvas like a whirlpool.
When pouring, make sure that you pour the paint lengthways onto the canvas so that you don’t have to cover too far when swirling it later.
In the video on the swirl pouring technique you can see how easy it is to create beautiful pictures.
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Pouring with a spoon – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 4
For this pouring technique I used the colors of the rainbow and a tablespoon.
In the first step, the entire canvas was covered with a base color. In this case I used white.
The bright colors go into this color base.
To do this, you take a large spoon and pour the colors onto the spoon one by one, the colors running from the spoon onto the canvas.
The movement of the spoon and the different amounts of color create an irregular flow of color on the canvas, which later leads to an impressive picture.
In this video you can see how I use the pouring technique with a spoon.
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The funnel – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 5
The pouring technique with a funnel is really great for beginners if you make sure you only use a few colors.
In this example, I just used three acrylic paints, a green-blue, a turquoise and white.
The three colors go alternately into a sufficiently large funnel, which I close at the bottom while filling.
Now place the funnel on the canvas and let the paint run onto the canvas in a spiral motion.
The paint mixes together as it flows out of the funnel and a unique work of art is created.
You can watch the pouring technique with the funnel in the video here.
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The double flip cup – an acrylic pouring technique for experienced beginners
With the double flip cup technique, I first wondered whether it was really suitable for a beginner in acrylic casting.
I think so, even if there are many colors, the principle of a normal flip cup remains the same.
Pour acrylic paint into a cup, place it upside down on the canvas and peel it off.
With the double flip cup technique, you take two cups, preferably with different color combinations, and place them in each half of the canvas.
In this example, I have used an elongated canvas, but of course it also works on a square one.
However, the final effect looks much better on an elongated canvas.
Silicone oil was added to the colors for a nice cell effect.
I will show you how to create different cells with silicone oil in the course in the chapter “Creating cells with silicone oil”.
Try out the Double Flip Cup technique yourself, you can find the video here.
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The stripes pour painting technique – perfect for beginners
The ribbon technique or stripe technique is therefore perfect for beginners, as you can create impressive works of art on almost any size of canvas.
You will need several watering cans, but that’s all the work involved.
All the cups are filled with the same color combination and then poured onto the canvas side by side in strips.
Finally, swirl the canvas in the direction of the bands or stripes so that the excess paint runs off.
Why do I use many small pouring cups and not one large one? Because you get a repetitive effect with several small cups, which gives the later work of art its character.
Have fun with the video on the stripe pour painting technique.
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The Flip Cup – one of the first pouring techniques ever.
The pouring technique of the first hour was and is the flip cup.
The flip cup technique is so simple that if you were to draw up a ranking of the simplest and most beginner-friendly techniques, it would be right at the top.
The name of the technique already reveals what needs to be done: you fill a cup with your favorite colors, take the canvas and place it on the cup.
Now hold both together and turn it upside down. The cup now stands upside down on the canvas. Hence the name flip cup.
The canvas is now under the cup and all you have to do is lift the watering cup, flip the canvas and you’re done.
This is the short version, with a flip cup you can of course influence the end result a little.
There are flip cups with and without cells or color gradients; to shed some light on this, I have created a comparison video where you can see three methods for creating flip cups.
In this Flip Cup video you can see how the technique works and how different the results are if you fill the cups differently.
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Turn your canvas in the paint – simple pouring technique
Admittedly, the technique doesn’t look like it would be suitable for beginners at first.
But I would still like to encourage you to give this technique a try.
Perhaps not with quite so many colors at first.
When using this pouring technique, you need to prepare your work area a little by sticking a sheet of foil on your work table.
The film should be slightly larger than the canvas itself.
Now we apply our acrylic paints to the film; it doesn’t matter whether you use pouring medium or acrylic paint diluted with water.
However, it works a little better with a thicker consistency. I would therefore recommend using paint thinned with pouring medium.
To ensure that there is paint everywhere on the canvas later, I prime the canvas a little with white paint before dipping it into the paint.
Now place the canvas in the paint, press it down a little and turn it.
Turning the canvas causes the colors to mix, which leads to more beautiful effects.
You could also just place the canvas in the paint, press it down a little and lift it off again, but as mentioned before, turning it will give the picture its own character later on.
In the video I explain the individual steps of this pouring technique in more detail, have fun with it.
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The Puddle Pour – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 10
The puddle pour is one of the oldest acrylic pouring techniques.
Beginners in acrylic pouring should take a closer look at this technique, anyone can paint beautiful pictures with it, regardless of their level of experience.
In my opinion, this pouring technique has three major advantages:
Firstly, you have almost complete control over the painting process, this is where I decide which color will later be seen on the canvas and to what extent.
If I want to have more golden color in the middle, then I simply pour the color into the middle.
The other big advantage, especially for people like me who do this beautiful hobby regularly, is that you can really use your leftover paint in a targeted way.
And then, of course, this technique is very, very simple: you pour your diluted acrylic paints onto the canvas and spread them out by swirling.
Your own work of art is finished!
Here you can find a video of me using the puddle pour technique.
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The Multi Flip Cup pouring technique
I have already introduced you to the classic flip cup technique – here above, technique number 8.
Normally, you make a flip cup with just one large cup.
But feel free to try out several small cups – you’re sure to love the result.
The principle is the same here, you fill several small cups with your favorite colors, place them on the canvas using a palette knife or similar and lift the cups off.
The advantage, however, is that you have a little more control over the colors and the smaller amounts of paint mean you don’t have to worry about the colors mixing too much.
This can happen with large flip cups.
I’ll show you what this pouring technique looks like in practice in two videos here; in the first video you can see an image with strong contrasts.
In the second video, I made a large image with lots of residual colors; as you can see, large images also work with this technique.
Here you can find two videos of me using the Multi Flip Cup technique.
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The swipe pour – Acrylic pouring technique for beginners No. 12
If you love cells in your pictures, then try the swipe technique.
For the swipe technique, we need silicone oil and a heat source such as a Bunsen burner or a heat gun in addition to the acrylic paints.
This pouring technique requires a little more effort, but it is still relatively simple and therefore also a pouring technique for beginners.
The cells are created by adding silicone oil; with this technique, the silicone oil only needs to be added to the bright colors.
All the bright colors are spread over the canvas.
This can be done using the flip cup method or, as I show in this picture, by simply pouring several puddles of paint onto the canvas.
This opaque paint, in our case black (any other color can be used), is now drawn over the canvas using baking paper, foil, kitchen paper or similar.
This gives us a nice clean background and the black opaque paint mixes with the bright colors underneath.
Now we just need to heat the paint and the silicone oil with a little heat to create lots of beautiful cells.
Here you can see a detailed view of the cells.
The finished work of art – created using the swipe technique.
In the video you can see the individual steps of this pouring technique even better and if you would like to learn more about other variations of cell formation with silicone oil, then take a look at the chapter “Creating cells with silicone oil” in my online course.
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Do you still have questions about acrylic pouring?
The pouring techniques for beginners should serve as inspiration and show you how easy it is to paint beautiful pictures yourself. However, there are a few things to bear in mind so that you can achieve really beautiful results without having to spend ages trying things out and wasting a lot of time and money. How to prepare the canvases, how to mix the acrylic paints correctly, how to calculate the amount of paint you need or how to dry your paintings faster and seal them nicely. I will show you this and everything else that is important in detail in my > Pouring course.
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