Is It New?
Fluid Art has been around since the 1930’s. David Alfaro Siqueiros, a Mexican artist and political activist, can be credited with the invention of paint pouring. He referred to it as ‘accidental painting’ because it was just a fluke that he stumbled across this painting technique. His experiments with paint lead him to just pour one color of paint onto the other and watch what happened. The paints moved and mixed and much to his surprise, he fell in love with this technique.
Siqueiros began using this 'accidental painting' method for his artwork because he enjoyed the combination of art and science he was using to create his work.
Siqueiros explored the influences that Fluid Dynamics had on his art. Later on, other artists such as Jackson Pollack were also knowledgeable of how Fluid Dynamics worked and it’s what made his artwork so successful. Other famous fluid artists are Morris Louis and Helen Frankenthaler.
Taken from an article by Eva Folks
What is Considered Fluid Art?
Fluid Art can be defined as any form of art that uses free-flowing fluid paint. This paint is usually of a runny consistency of similar or varying densities. When the paint is combined with different additives and poured onto a surface, it creates an organic, abstract form of artwork. You never know exactly what your final piece is going to look like until it’s dry.
Many times, Fluid Art is referred to as Acrylic Pouring, and there are a lot of ways that artists pour their paints to get the effects they want, but all use the science of Fluid Dynamics to get the effects they are trying to achieve.
Physics and ART
All pigments have a specific density or weight. Some pigments are lighter, and others are heavier. Colors with a heavier density will sink to the bottom while the colors that are less dense will float on top. When paints rise and sink, they gather small bits of the paint they are moving through. When bubbles of lighter paint move up to the top of the painting, they create cells, which is what many fluid artists want. This interaction of materials with different densities is called the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.
If one is making a flip cup for example, and layering the paints before pouring onto the canvas, it is important to know the density of the paints. You could also get “mud” by putting two paints that are on the opposite side of the color wheel next to each other without separating them by a neutral color, such as white.
