This will be a quick post, but I wanted to pop in briefly to talk about one of my newest pastimes: pour painting! Pour painting is a technique in which acrylic paint is mixed with some type of pouring medium (such as paint additive and water) and then poured onto a canvas in a variety ways.

This painting technique has become all the rage lately, and many people have posted their results with different pour methods on YouTube (where I stumbled upon this unique art style). Here’s an example of one of the YouTube videos that originally peaked my interest.

My husband and I have spent the past several weekends pour painting our cares away, and some of our results have been pretty exciting. We have created a whole slew of beautiful pieces of art that are now hanging in our bathroom, bedroom, hallway, and living room. In just a few weeks, we’ve essentially turned our home into a mini art gallery that thrills us with pride and joy.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “Um…how is this relevant to design?” That’s completely fair. When I first began pour painting, I thought it would be a nice way to escape from the daily stressors of life: the news, work, and, yes, design. While this definitely ended up being true, I began to realize as I painted that my relaxation activity was actually still helping me to work on skills that are useful to the UI design portions of my career.

Through pour painting, I make design of choices such as…

• How can I approach this painting in a manner that is unique and fun, while still adhering to the art style at hand?
• What colors should I use?
• Will these colors look good together?
• Will there be enough contrast between the colors I’m adding to make for an aesthetically pleasing viewer experience?
• What sort of feeling will these colors that I’m choosing invoke in the viewer of my piece?
• Does this piece feel balanced? If not, what choices can I make to ensure it does?

All of these questions that I’ve had to ponder while experimenting with pour painting have direct relevance to my design career because these are questions I have to ask myself everyday while creating graphics, websites, or print materials.

Check out some of my favorite pour paintings I’ve made thus far!