Just like most art forms, fluid art therapy is one art form that doesn’t necessarily have an established or proper name attached to it, but nonetheless, is in fact, a form of art therapy.
I began fluid art nearly three years ago, when I had hit a low point in my life. As you may do, I began looking on YouTube for motivational speeches. See some of my favorite speakers here. But, instead, me being a creative, I found fluid paint videos. I got memorized by the music, seemingly flowing with the fluid paint. The colors and feelings I got immediately, I knew I wanted to experience it myself. Maybe even slightly addictive.
So I did it. I went out and bought ordered from Amazon the basics to get me started.
Fluid Art is now one of my favorite therapies I do for myself. It’s meditative in its mixing, swirling and softly blending. Even after the initial flow has halted on a flat surface, you can still play in its blended beauty. You can use tools to swipe it or drag around in the liquid paint making more swirls or designs. You can even tilt your piece to have it flow more or less in a specific direction.
Fluid Art therapy is meditative in its mixing, swirling and softly blending.
Heather Christian Iglesias
Where the therapy in fluid art therapy comes in is dependent on you. All therapy is dependent on you by the way. You HAVE to let go with this art form. You can only manipulate so much. If you’re working on control issues, this is the art therapy for you. It’s an emotional response to want to control the moving paint.
In this conscious thought alone, we can relax in an all knowing that it will all work out. You can only guide so far, but at the end of the day, it will dry how it wants.
The beauty and easthetics of fluid art is viceral. The outcome will never be the same. Fluid Art will have a different effect depending on the weight of liquids and of the rate and propulsion through the air and delivery on each surface. I’ll spare you all of the drawn-out definitions of fluid dynamics. Essentially it’s the patterns that emerge from liquids and water, and oil in some cases.
When we pour paint or use fluid art on a canvas or another flat surface, a heavier paint may sink into a lighter paint, creating patterns. Blowing the paint around at a fast rate may cause it to develop bubbles and a web effect. If you pour it at a steady flow, the colors will mix and you may be left with swirls. Of course there’s always drip paintings if the surface is vertical.
Fluid Art became known to the world by exploring new art forms by a Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in the 1930s. He inspired the works of Jackson Polluck, who is famous for splatter paintings. Pollucks works are pivotal in modern art and abstract, or abstract expressionism.
So I thank them both for their contribution. And, thank you, for wanting to help yourself through art, specifically fluid art therapy.
