#91 Blooms Technique - 2 Ingredient US Floetrol Cell Activator | Acrylic Pour Painting | Fluid Art

[Music] hi guys it's jody today's video i want to talk about the u.s float trial as opposed to the australian float troll and when i say us float troll i mean this bottle the orange label this is what you can get here in north america canada the united states and then this is the australian flow trial with the red label and this um well it has to come from australia but this is the secret sauce uh i do have a um usf cell activator recipe that works really well and you use the minwax pre-stain conditioner and a couple of other ingredients and my video for that i'll link it um it's it's down below but i'll link it up here too uh it is video number 16. but i was watching lisa marvin from lisa marvin art her youtube channel if you haven't seen her work she does amazing huge blooms i'm talking two foot three foot blooms they're just incredible and she's also part of the shelly art team she did a video um maybe a couple months back trying to get the us flow trial to work alone with some amsterdam paint and she was successful and she upped the ratio to about um i think six to one and i'm like oh okay yeah i wonder if because the now the us flow trial is thicker it it has a different makeup the flood company says no it's the same but maybe they maybe it's the same ingredient ingredients they call it the same ingredients but they're ones thicker and one's thinner in you know the different countries australia and here but i don't know it smells different to me but i was you know my brain started started just churning after i saw lisa's video and i'll link that below down in the description box if you want to go check it out so i started testing a little bit and that's what this video is going to be about today i want to show you what i've come up with i i took it a little bit step further so i i have to give credit to lisa for coming up with this and i just kind of upped the ratios even more to see where it would go so first i want to show you uh some test pieces that i did and and then i you know i'll tell you the ratios and then i want to mix it up and show you how i mixed it up and then we're going to do a demo you know all that good stuff first i want to talk about some of the caveats that i have just seen just from my experiments with the us flow trawl as opposed to the australian flow trial australian filter if you've used it you and you also have tried the us flow trial you'll notice it is thinner it just right outside of the the bottle it's thinner and you don't have to strain it for some reason the u.s floetrol chunks get in there and you definitely have to strain it or you're going to just have chunks pouring into your piece but a few caveats is the u.s flow troll is thicker and so it responds slower even at the higher ratios that i was blending it with paint to get it to work it was still you know it's not as reactive or as responsive as the australian filtral but the cells were were looking really good and they were holding on really well and another thing i noticed is sometimes it was more of a challenge because it's a little bit thicker it's more of a challenge to blow across your colors it's not as smooth as using the australian flow troll so take that into consideration as well if you want to give this a try and i have only tested this so far with the infinity the infinity joe sonia which is a thinner a thinner pouring medium i haven't tried it with the bear and i'm going to assume that it works well with the glint because of the glitten joe sonia mix or glidden whatever varnish you use is a thinner mix as well i you know i will continue to test in the background and if you know i see some something weird happening with a thicker pouring medium i'll let you know but it was really successful with the infinity joe sonia so i and i don't want that to discourage you from trying and another thing the paint i used was amsterdam i tried it with the acrylic and it was just doing kind of wayward things the cells were there but they were weird even for u.s floetrol standards they were weird so when i started mixing up the amsterdam paints they worked really well so i've stuck with that as well and you know and again i'll continue testing so right now i want to show you just real quick a few of the dried pieces that i have already done for testing it and then we'll get to mixing up a batch and then we'll we'll we'll play with it so let's go get started all right so i tested both a black and a white cell activator and i did both blooms and swipes because i just wanted i just wanted i wanted to run it through the gauntlet and they were all successful so the first one i'm going to show you this is uh using the amsterdam titanium white mixed with the us flow troll they got a little squirrely but i really wasn't worried about it i didn't take enough paint off so it was the cells and the action and i mean i got all manner of cells and they held pretty well you can see that i feel like the black responds better and darker colors respond better with this because this was the uh what what black did i use i used the oxide black the amsterdam i mean the cells just exploded it was it was unreal i i i had to do a double take to make sure i was like wait i used the right one right but you know again as as i blew blew it out and you know the cells were coming up it was just a tick uh slower to respond so there's that one and then the first swipe i did this was the uh using the titanium white and it was it was very responsive i i'm excited to try swipes on a bigger piece with with this recipe actually and then the well it's kind of dark you can't really see there are a lot of cells here this was the oxide black so those were those were all my test pieces that i did when i decided okay i have to do a video on this so now we're going to mix up a batch of white cell activator and black cell activator and then we're going to go play with them all right i'm going to be using i get these little cups are four ounces just so i have room because when you when you have it all in there you want to mix mix mix mix i mix it for a good three four minutes just to get it all incorporated and i keep my flow troll just in a squeeze bottle i put a little bit of cheese cloth so it kind of self-strains just a little tip there for using the us flow troll so uh what i did and i used uh teaspoons is for we're gonna what we're gonna mix up the white cell activator first this is the amsterdam the standard series if you have the expert series it's the expert series is a little bit thicker you might want to up your ratio you know by one or two because your paint's going to be a little bit thicker but this is the amsterdam standard series the titanium white so what i did was i took 10 parts of the us flow troll to one part so 10 teaspoons of the flotrol to one teaspoon of the titanium white that's it that's it so let's do that really quick so i don't lose count either one two three four five six seven 8 9 10 and i originally started at 9 nine parts of flow trial to one part paint and i kept the black at nine parts but i mean it's it's almost negligible i went up to ten because i felt maybe it was just a smidge more it you know you can you can do 10 you can do 9 you can do 11 but the whole point is up the ratio it it works it's working it's it's working it's it's it's not australian floetrol but the us flow troll is working so now in here i will just add the white white paint just like that and we're good and now we're just gonna we're gonna mix the heck out of this mix it mix it mix it if you want to put a timer on it mix it for at least three four minutes i mean i'm not i'm not gonna mix it for three four minutes on camera i'll probably stop and come back but you want to really mix mix mix just to get it all incorporated and then every time you use it mix mix mix i don't know how long since i just started testing this you know my batches are fresh i don't know how long it will last but since it's you know you don't have all the other ingredients in there you just have well amp flotrol the us flow troll in the amsterdam paint i'm assuming it might last longer it might last as long as uh the australian flow trawl and there's another thing i want to point out too if you can see if you scrape down the sides you'll see like little cells form as you're scraping down the sides that that i usually see that with the australian flow troll so that's why how i knew oh my gosh this this might actually work and i've seen that uh in my other us photocell activator recipe the one with the minwax so this could be an alternative if you don't want to use that recipe you can't get the minwax you don't want to use the minwax maybe give this a go but i was just super excited to you know have seen lisa's video and then i was like i have got to try this and i have got to test this and i've got to see where we can go with this so thank you lisa you created a monster with me and the us flow troll cell activator recipe again okay i'm gonna let that sit and we're gonna mix up the the black one really quick just so you can see again i'm gonna use a four ounce container uh but this one i'm gonna put nine teaspoons in one [Music] two three four five six seven eight nine don't worry about that last little bit in there if you put when you put paint in there it'll come out otherwise just put another tiny little squirt of flotrol in there it's not that big of a deal and actually i'm gonna go this way this is the oxide black the amsterdam there we go a teaspoon just slide right in put that out and we're gonna mix mix mix mix mix mix mix again mix it three four minutes seriously mix mix mix mix mix i was scraping down the sides too i always scraped on the sides no matter what i'm mixing just to get fully incorporated and if you'll if you can see i don't know if the camera will pick it up but if you can see as i'm swiping down again you see like the little cells forming that like cells want to form it wants to make cells and even if you know if you have trouble with this with the blooms maybe it'll work better for you with swipes i am gonna um experiment more with that as well myself all right i'll finish mixing that off camera and we'll get ready to go and let me show you the consistencies of these first so that's kind of what you want it kind of leaves a little bit of a trace it is going to be thicker because i mean useful troll is thicker but it runs off of your stick really nice too you see that and i'll show if that's the camera picking that up not really i'll show it again um when we're painting you get a better view of how it runs off the stick but here's there's the white too kind of how how thick it is all right let's go paint i'm going to use my glitten blind premium satin for just the pillow and i'm just going to use these four inch tiles just you know as as little test subjects because they're easy to work with all right i'm gonna do blooms first and the colors i'm just using mixed up colors i have here on my bench from the last few videos i've got i've got a gold here and i'll put them in the front in case you're interested in the color combo and also down below in the description box but this is the consistency this is the golden fluid iridescent bright gold and then my next color is going to be my favorite hot pink it's the vallejo the fluid acrylic and the fluorescent pink and then this one here's the consistency of it i think it was a mix of two i think it was a mix of the vallejo turquoise and um the atelier whoa i'm going off there but that's okay um i'll remember and i will put it at the front of this video again these are just mixed up colors i just grabbed on my bench just to all right we will start with the white cell activator and here's a better angle of what the consistency looks like but you see it runs really nicely off the stick and you want to try to put just a thin layer of it so it's not plopped all in one area and you'll start to see the halo if you use the australian flow troll when that halo that halo is a good thing because it's going to be sinking see how it's it's a bit slower to respond but they're coming up and the i've noticed every time i use the us flow trust uh cell activated recipe whether it's this that i'm testing or the other one uh with the the minwax pre-stained conditioner the cells do look a bit different than if you're using the australian floetrol but i mean look at that you're watching it before before your eyes too here's what that looks like as it's coming up i just wanted to give you a better angle and i'll do that with all of these two because it responds slower but if you're going to use a straw or anything else if the middle doesn't quite cooperate that right there us flow trial and paint higher ratio woohoo all right i'm going to pop just a little bit of more pillow on the corners because i'm just going to slowly spin this out and then we'll go on to the the black one but i like to let it just just come up a little bit more and it's all come up in the center so it'll it'll move cohesively it's not stuck so i'm just gonna spin it really lightly not even gonna do any modifications it's all about the cells today i mean look at that i think we're good i think i got enough paint off i think we're okay that's look at that i mean look at them coming in it almost does appear like it's australian float troll it just takes longer but this was a ten to one ratio us flow troll amsterdam titanium white right there well here's the black cell activator one i blew out and i thought my recorder my camera was on i'm gonna do it again just to show you how it responds but this is before i'm spinning it out it was very responsive so let me try that again okay now i have the recorder on for the black cell activator you just saw me you just saw the one i blew out and i thought my camera was on and it wasn't so you you got a look-see at what it it's capable of doing but i i want to show you on camera me blowing it out i'm just going to put the same colors down the gold that's the slide the hot pink and then the turquoise just a little bit i don't have a lot left of this i might have to switch to another color for swipes and again here's the oops here's the consistency of the black cell activator it's just at a better angle than when i was mixing it but it's a nice runny consistency off your stick and it leaves just a bit of a trace in there you just want to put just a thin thin layer and wait for the halo to come just like with the australian flow trial and you saw with the white cell activator i like to usually just see it gets a little bit fuzzy around the edges so it's you know it's sinking get your straw in there help it along but you know it sinks down a little bit slower but you'll see it's just it's coming up like magic that's what that looks like as it's coming in i mean come on i'm still like what this is just us floetrol and amsterdam paint just at a really high ratio and you saw how it dried too i mean it dries so yeah and here it is spun out i mean come on i'm i'm i'm pretty floored myself all right onto onto swiping now all right moving on to a swipe with it i am going to use oh i think i'm just going to use this this little guy right here i'm going to put the cell activator on there same same colors just going to do simple swipe and whatever's left of my turquoise there's not much that's okay and i'm just gonna put oops wrong side jody a little bit on here and we're gonna swipe well i totally messed that up not used to this little guy but see there are cells forming let me put some more on and swipe over here that was my mess up okay let's just go really easy over here let's not do anything fancy that was funny oh boy but they're responding there we've got cells over here too it does respond really nicely with swipes when you do the swipe right oh that's so funny i wonder if i can get anything out of that multi-color something there i'm not used to using this really small tool that might be a wasted effort oh well i'm just making it worse and i'm gonna show you this but clearly the rest has responded might mess up see it's still responding but it's yeah it's super responsive with swipes too i i'm totally gonna try this on a bigger canvas this mix i'm just going to spin this out really quick and then we're going to do the black swipe and maybe i'll use a different tool that one doesn't like me but even in my oopsies i can see little little cells forming so that's funny all right just spin this really quick get some paint off maybe take it down a little this way a little okay here's what that one looked like spun out oopsie and all it still turned out pretty cool but you see the response that's all that's what i was after was the response factor all right last one and we're going to do the black cell activator in a swipe and hopefully i don't mess this one up but i'm not really looking for composition it's all just in the response so all right same gold i'm just going to do it a little bit different this time just going to plop it on there all right and a tiny bit left all right and here is i'm going to use a bigger one it's a little bit bigger hopefully i can not mess this one up just get the excess off that's what that one looks like and i'm just gonna swipe just like that i see things popping up over here i'm just gonna go that way just a little bit this one was better this one responded better i gotta work i gotta work on that skill but touching up skill but as you can see it is just super responsive it's so pretty i mean super responsive even where i'm messing up it's responsive all right i'm just gonna pop a little bit of pillow on the corners and we're gonna spin this last one out i just want to get enough paint off there's close to as much as i'm gonna still moving around a little bit that is so cool that is really cool all right i'm gonna call that one done here's what that one looks like so yeah useful troll with paint works really works so here's a bit of a flyover of all of them this was the first one it's holding its shape nicely a few little squigglies but again i'm not worried about it i wasn't trying to get enough paint off i just really wanted to see the response i mean that is just phenomenal and then here was the one that i forgot to turn the camera on a little bit of wiggle in it wiggliness in the center but again not worried i mean look at the response and then this was the one i remembered to turn the camera on for phenomenal response and then the first swipe i messed up a little bit but i mean it was super responsive i'm wondering though because that's that selective air st is sinking if if you do swipes with this maybe you do want to thicken it up just a touch maybe go with nine to one instead of ten to one ratio same with the well actually the yeah see this is nine to one because it's the black and it's holding up a little bit better maybe even bring it down to eight to one for swipes i feel like the blooms need a little bit more with the blow but the swipes super responsive something to play with anyways but yeah i will be back once these are all dried and i'll show you how they dried if they shifted anymore but fantastic and i'm back to show you the dried results of all the test subjects that we did together and can i just say holy wow who no right okay so the first one was the bloom with the white cell activator and it just dried beautifully i mean try and get in without it blurring just so you can see all the detail there was just a little bit of movement but i know it might have been stuck a little bit on there and also there could have been just some paint left over for it to move so and i'm not really concerned with it because just the reaction i mean and it look at those little cells on the sides sticking there and hanging on for dear life seriously and this one i don't remember which one is which i think this one i think this one was the one where i forgot to turn my camera on but i'm going to show you the dried result of it anyways i mean those cells just popping and they're just hanging over the sides and they dry just beautifully a little bit of squirminess but again not worried about that worried about the cell reaction and this was a really good one and then this was the one you saw me blow on camera very similar to the last one with the reactions get in there if i can get the there's that one and now the swipes they kept sinking and i'm wondering like i said when i showed you you know the flyover i feel like the ratio might need to be a little bit thicker for swipes the blooms it seemed to work really well but the swipes i felt like it kept sinking because it really isn't you don't see much of the uh the webbing it just kept sinking down and this kind of moved around a little bit i had a lot of paint on there again i wasn't looking for composition it was really just a test of the reaction but something to think about as you're playing with it too is maybe if you're going to do a swipe maybe try um since i had it at 10 to 1 for the white maybe try it at 91 just a touch thicker i mean it's it's all you know about consistency and what's working well for you but the whole point of this was up that consistency the usl float the u.s flow troll cell activator will work and then here is the uh the black cell activator and again it just kept sinking the lines were a little bit more defined uh earlier but then it just kept sinking and it dried this way the cells are still there and it just i had a lot of paint on there so it did keep moving some more but again you know this was at nine to one so maybe try eight to one for a swipe i'm gonna i'm gonna continue to test that as well i really wanna to swipe with these on a bigger canvas as well as blowing it out on a bigger canvas but all in all my conclusion the us flow trial cell activator just with paint works really well really really well so my recommendation is if you want to give this a go try it at the the ratios you know that i tried it at if if it feels a little bit thin for you then just add a little bit more paint or just adjust the ratio either higher or lower if it's thicker to you again adjust it you know put some more flotrol in if it's the the the thing that to remember is with any consistency if it's for example the cell activator if it's if you feel it's too thick add some more flotrol if you feel it's too thin add some more paint or just adjust your ratio one up one down like instead of nine to one do eight to one instead if you're gonna go up instead of nine to one do ten to one it's all i mean like i've been saying all along with this technique and with painting in general it's so personal it's it's personal in how you execute how you blow it out how your consistencies are the thickness of your paint that you're using the environment that you're in it's all just so so personal how you swipe so personal so take that into consideration if something's not working just kind of work with it you know a little bit more and adjust either adjust up or just down it's it's you know all the recipes that i share they work really well but it maybe you're in a different environment it just needs to be tweaked ever so slightly just just for you personally so don't get discouraged just tweak it a little bit more and i'm always here to answer questions too so let me know your thoughts on this have you have you tried it already does it work well for you i am you know i'm super curious to hear if any of you have tried this already um what you think of this let me know in the comments below i had such a good time testing this out i'm going to continue testing i and i'm so excited for this as i'm sure some of you are too especially if you can't get a hold of the the australian flow trail flow trial you know whether it's a budget issue or you live somewhere where you just can't get it or and you can get the us flow trial or you know any any factor or you don't want to use the other recipe i have the the one with the minwax pre-stain conditioner it works well too but that minwax is stinky maybe you don't want to use it maybe you can't get it so this is another this is another option for you so with that i really hope you enjoyed this video i hope that it helped you please like share and subscribe and i will see you guys next time thanks so much for watching [Music] you

Channel: The Painted Dreamer

Views: 28,072

Rating: 4.960814 out of 5

Keywords: Fluid acrylics, fluid art, Acrylic pouring, Paint pouring, Abstract art, Abstract painting, Acrylic pour, Pouring Paint, Pour Painting, Blooms Technique, Shelee Art, Sheleeartstyle, Swipe, US Floetrol CA, Cell Activator, US Floetrol, Floetrol, Blooms Technique - 2 Ingredient US Floetrol Cell Activator, No Silicone

Id: l67Y-3mQ_Ac

Length: 41min 49sec (2509 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Starsnrocks]

I have learned A LOT from this YouTube channel! I highly recommend watching her videos for a wealth of knowledge when it comes to bloom pours. 😊