
Easily one of the most captivating aspects of fluid art is the spontaneity of creating cells in your art work. But it's equally as frustrating when you just can't seem to get it right because there's just so many different recipes out there.
What I've found in my experience after teaching thousands of people is that initially you may have an incorrect idea that all cells are the same, and they're all made the same way using one magic ingredient.
And there's a 99% chance you think that ingredient is called a "Cell Activator"
I'm going to completely detangle this for you with this demonstration. If you're here, chances are you found this article through this video:
So here I'm going to elaborate on all three types. In all three cases I did a technique called the Swipe.
Lacing

The most popular and most confusing of the three is Lacing. This is the method that actually uses a "Cell Activator."
A "Cell Activator" is specifically the name of a recipe that consists of Australian Floetrol and Amsterdam paint. It's traditionally used in the bloom technique or the Swipe. The effect is creates is called Lacing - the web like pattern in white.
In the video, the Cell Activator is the white paint that I put directly on the spatula and swiped with it. I did not add a cell activator to the white paint. The white paint IS the cell activator, and despite popular belief, the Amsterdam paint is actually the crucial component, not the Australian floetrol. You can make lacing with just Amsterdam paint and water (try 1.5 parts Amsterdam to 1 of water)
How it works: The principle of fluid mechanics that allows this to happen is called the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability. When fluids of different densities are placed on top of each other and then destabilized through movement, they sink in a pattern.
All the other paints are just 2 parts pouring medium and 1 part acrylic paint.
Cells

These cells start round but they tend to swell. Silicone Oil can be used across many techniques generally in the medium consistency (2 parts pouring medium to 1 of paint) You use it by adding a single drop into your colors and mixing. You never put it in the base or it can prevent the paint from sticking properly to the canvas.
How it works: Oil doesn't mix with water. When you mix the drop of silicone oil into your water based paints, what you're actually doing is breaking it up into smaller drops. These oil drops remain clear and unmixed with the paint until you pour. They rise to the surface because oil is less dense than water, and then beacuse they are clear, they reveal what is underneath them .
The paints are all mixed 2 parts pouring medium to 1 part acrylic paint with 1 drop of silicone in the purple and yellow.
Clouds

Puffy looking cells and cell clusters. This type of cells is usually white and named after their habit of resembling cloud formations. They don't HAVE to be white, but they do rely on two paints that tend to be sold primarily in white. These are the Deco Art Satin Enamel, and the Artist Loft Soft Body. The latter is not globally available, so outside the US and Canada, artists tend to experiment and replace it with other acrylic paints to various interesting results.
How it works: This concept is a little tricky to wrap your head around because there's actually two things happening. The first is different brands of paint have different sheens, as in how light reflective the finish is. You might recognize these terms like Matte, Eggshell, Satin, Semi-Gloss and Gloss. These different sheens also have different surface tension or grip. So they don't move across each other or sink through each other evenly.
Additionally, the Artist Loft Soft Body is a paint that's typically wildly unstable in fluid art and has this terrible habit of swallowing any paint you put on top of it. When you combine these two effects, you get Cloud cells.
In the video I start by putting a layer of Cloud paint (1 part deco art., 1 part artist loft, 2 parts pouring medium, splash of water) followed by the same colors we've been using so far - (2 parts pouring medium and 1 part of paint) and then I just swipe across a couple of times to destabilize the paints so they sink.
Bear in mind, this isn't how you typically make a "Cloud Pour," those involve layering the paints in a cup and pouring them out in ring or straight patterns, but the cells work in pretty much the same way.
Want to learn more about how all the cool stuff in fluid art works? My online courses will have you making awesome paintings in no time!
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