Try Something New - Cell Pouring

Have you seen this craze about how people pour different colours of paint into a cup and just dump it all over a canvas but the result that comes out is so beautiful? Crazy enough how none of the colours mix and make these funny little cells! Well I recently found a place offering a workshop and thought WHY NOT?!

We all need some inspiration and my recent blog on 10 Tips for Finding Inspiration says that you need to try something new which is exactly what I did! It was the very first workshop I’ve attended and it was so exciting to be part of something that I think is such a cool idea. Learning a lot about paint which I don’t really like doing but might start with in the near future. For this painting technique, whether it be for a professional or intermediate artist (or not even an artist) is such an easy style to learn, just going crazy with it. Like I said you don’t even need to be an artist, just combining eccentric colours could leave a beautiful result.

My aunt who is a bit of an artist herself joined me but even for her who can’t draw the things I can she found it very easy, relaxing and fun to do. She loved every second of it and made some new friends along the way. We arrived getting, a 450mm x 450mm square, small frame and a small tile to do all of our practicing on.

Our first pour on our tile was quite scary but we were more excited than anxious. We didn’t want to mess it up but let’s face it in the end it can either be a hit or miss with this technique as your paint keeps pouring off and moving as it dries. So if you thought it’s going to be green it might look a bit more blue than usual but still beautiful depending on the colours and amounts you used. Like they say practice makes perfect and I think that our first encounter and results with this type of painting style was quite good.

The technique for this one was just to flip the tile over onto the cup, turn it over and then picking the cup up off of the tile. Then you take the tile and tilt it so the paint runs across to cover all the corners of the square. Our tiles came out kind of looking the same in the end even though we never knew what colours the other used. Loved the result of the greens and blues mixing together.

My Aunts Tile

My Tile

Our second pour was on the frame where we did a second technique of pouring our selected paint colours from the cup in a spiral. Here’s what I mean about it can either be a hit or a miss:

My aunts one came out so nice that everybody who came past loved hers so much and couldn’t stop swooning about how beautiful her colour choices were, but mine which I thought would be redder came out being just pink!


In my video you can see that I had magenta, white, pink and some orange but when you see the result it looks pinker. Not even a trace of orange! And believe me before I took the picture of the end result it was like JUST PINK! I blew on the paint to reveal more of the hidden paint underneath so it wouldn’t look so girly. I’m not really happy about the end result maybe because of the pink but it can still be used and is still a great example. Maybe one day I could do a re-pour if I feel like it?

My Aunts

My now not so VERY PINK frame

Our last pour on our big square was what I actually came to the workshop for. It’s a nice size to hang and use more colours on. Before I went to the workshop I looked for ideas on what colours I can use. I settled for a beach theme. The last technique she showed us was with two cups. With the first cup, you flip the square over onto the cup, flip it back with the cup, then you pour the second cup around and then you pick up the first one, tilting the square to let the paint run to the corners afterwards.

My aunt did it and the most beautiful purples, yellows and reds came alive all on one canvas. They blended so well and she didn’t even plan her colours! She loved the end result and so did everyone else.

My Aunts beautiful piece

With mine I thought about it for a while because when the instructor showed us how to do it and what I imagined in my head didn’t involve the brown and blue mixing in one cup or pouring it out together. More of like a left to right gradient type of look. I then decided to fill one cup with my browns and the second with the blues. Thinking about it carefully because if any one of the things we got had to be perfect, it HAS TO BE THIS ONE! Like I was contemplating using it as a decoration, you know, and you definitely want to walk away from a workshop with experience and like something you can use.

So after careful consideration, as if this was a life choice, I decided to pour the brown first on the left and manipulating/ tilting the square to have the desired effect before moving onto the second cup. (When I first poured it, it looked like chocolate.) Pouring the second one I made sure to have the blue and brown mix in the center to look like the ocean is meeting the beach. The end result was perfect just like I wanted it to be. Different to the other workshop attendees and just awesome.

My beautiful piece

I really loved this workshop and my aunt and I are preparing to make more of them in the future, experimenting with more techniques to make this look more interesting and unique. We walked away with smiles on our faces and paint all over our hands and clothes (even though there were precautions for this like gloves and aprons). We were loving every second of it and finding more inspiration through this was definitely all worth it. Now let’s not talk about transporting it back home because with that came a few hooting cars and people saying we driving too slow (Haha).

Our next step is to put some glaze over to make it look shiny as the paint we used like craft, acrylic and fabric goes a bit dull after it dries. Will definitely post the final results and some more examples soon so stay tuned!

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