Are you looking for a fun Valentine’s Day DIY Project the whole family can get in on? Fluid painting is perfect for family projects as it requires very little hand-eye coordination or finger dexterity. Because there are no paintbrushes involved the smallest thing you’ll need to hold is a dixie cup!
I did this project with a friend and her daughter and while our heart idea didn’t quite turn out how we anticipated, the abstract art is still beautiful.
Here’s all the supplies you’ll need for this project:
- Canvas
- Assorted dixie cups
- Paint colors
- Floetrol
- Paper towels
- Cookie drying rack
- Aluminum baking container
- Paintbrushes or popsicle sticks
We started by gathering our supplies and then picking out paint colors. I recommend no more than 4-5 color choices or they start to run together and you don’t get the full design. We then mixed our paint and Floetrol together to make the paint thinner. The Floetrol dries clear so your colors will appear more vibrant on the canvas than they look in the cup. Also, make sure to mix throughly using a scooping motion to bring the paint up from the bottom of the cup.
There are several recipes and ratios for paint mixing, however I’ve found that for the one ounce dixie cups, you just need to cover the bottom of the cup with paint. Approximately a 1:4 ratio of paint to Floetrol.
Since we were attempting to create a heart in the middle of our painting we chose to ribbon the mixed paint around the outside of the canvas. After the paint cup was empty, we used damp paper towels to “swipe” the paint away from the heart and fill in the areas of the canvas where there was no paint. While our heart design didn’t stay, the swipe technique created some really fun designs.
To do the swipe technique, dampen your paper towel and rip it into small pieces about 2”x3”. Carefully lay the edge of the paper towel down where you would like the start of the swipe to be and drag it to the edge of the painting. You want to pick up some paint, but not all of it of course. This technique creates lots of tiny little cells and interesting patterns in the painting.
Once you’ve completed the swipe to your satisfaction, you’ll want to leave the painting in flat place to dry for 2-3 days. I recommend making sure the painting is in an area that doesn’t have any drastic temperature changes. Too hot or too cold of an environment can cause the paint to dry inconsistently and crack.
After the painting is completely dry, I recommend sealing it with a clear poly-acrylic. This will create a seal around the paint to protect it as well as making your new art shiny.
I hope you all enjoy this project as much as I did. Leave me a comment and tell me how it went!
