What Is A Dutch Pour?
A Dutch Pour is a type of flow art that involves adding pouring medium to acrylic paint until it’s a pourable consistency. Several colors are then poured onto a canvas and moved around with blown air (often from a hairdryer) to create cells, lacing, ribbons and other colorful effects.
Guest artist Christine Fitzgerald specializes in Dutch Pours and enjoys putting her own creative spin on what she sees in nature. Today, Christine shows us how to incorporate resin and the Dutch Pour technique in two different ways:
- A Traditional Dutch Pour: using epoxy resin to clear coat an acrylic Dutch Pour painting.
- A Resin Dutch Pour: using epoxy resin as the pouring medium to create an abstract painting.
Christine demonstrates her most popular fluid art design, a Dutch Pour Sunflower painting, and shares many invaluable tips and techniques she has learned along the way.
Let’s get started!
How To Create A Dutch Pour Sunflower
Sunflowers are a favorite for so many people, so Christine wanted to capture a Dutch Pour sunflower as realistically as she could. She used multiple shades of yellow, in addition to metallic paints, to replicate the depth and dimension you’d see in nature.
Supplies You'll Need:
- 16 x 20 wood panel, painted white
- Liquitex Basics White Acrylic
- Artist Loft Black Acrylic
- 4-5 acrylic paint colors in the palette of your choice. Ideally, half should be metallic. Christine used Artist Loft Copper, Liquitex Basics Primary Yellow, Folk Art Paint Company Color Shift in Deep Yellow, Liquitex Basics Naples Yellow, Liquitex Basics Deep Yellow, and Pebeo Iridescent Gold.
- Pouring medium, like Floetrol, or make your own with white glue and water
- Cups and stir sticks - one per color
- Torch
- Stands to prop your panel up (painter’s pyramids or plastic cups)
- Hairdryer (with the nozzle attachment on)
- Masking tape
- Epoxy Resin
- Nitrile gloves
- Measuring Cup
- Mixing Stick
- Spreader
- Plastic drop sheet to line your work surface
- Dust Cover
Explore our resin art tools & supplies!
Step 1 - Prepare The Panel and Work Surface
The day before you intend to pour, paint the wood panel white using acrylic paint or gesso and allow to dry for 24 hours. Line the work surface with a plastic drop sheet or a vinyl shower curtain. Ensure your tools are on hand and easily accessible. Prop the painted panel off of the work surface using painter's pyramids or plastic cups.
Step 2 - Prepare The Acrylic Paint & Pouring Medium
Choose your palette, using 4-6 colors, plus white and black. Christine recommends that half the paint colors should be metallic to provide dimension. You can use store bought metallic paint or add a bit of gold acrylic to your solid acrylic colors to give them some shimmer.
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A Tip From Christine: Use a variety of brands when choosing your acrylic paints. Each brand has its own unique formula - these different formulas will react with each other to create better cells.
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Next, prepare the paint by adding the pouring medium. Use a pre-made pouring medium (such as Floetrol) or create your own pouring medium, as Christine does, using white school glue and water. The glue acts as a binder, preventing the water from breaking down the pigment which could diminish the paint’s opacity and vibrancy.
A general rule of thumb is to mix two parts glue, one part paint and enough water as necessary until it’s the consistency of pancake batter. It should be fluid enough to pour and be blown out with the hair dryer. Each brand of acrylic will have a different thickness so the amount of water may vary. Ultimately, all the color blends should end up with the same consistency so that the paint moves at the same rate.
Use large plastic containers to blend each paint color with the pouring medium. Once the paint is a pourable consistency, like batter, then pour each color into small plastic shot glasses. The smaller cups will make it easier to control the amount you pour.
For this project, we prepared approximately 1 oz total of each color blend, approximately 8 oz of black and approximately 16 oz of the white blend.
Step 3 - Create The Sunflower's Center
Using a wooden craft stick, draw the outline of the black sunflower center on one side of the panel.
Fill in the space by pouring the paint from the cup, spreading it out with the craft stick, ensuring it spreads down the edges of the panel. Apply a generous amount of paint so ensure a good flow.
Step 4 - Apply The White Base
Apply a generous amount of white over the entire surface of the panel - it’s always better to have more than less. Spread the paint out evenly so that the entire panel is covered in paint.
Spread the white paint alongside the black, leaving a gap between the two for the other paint colors. If you don’t leave space, the paint will blend too much and can go muddy.
Give a quick pass with the torch to pop any bubbles that might be hiding under the paint.
Step 5 - Apply The Paint Colors
Starting with the copper, pour as close to black as possible, even overlapping slightly to create cells from the paint colors lying on top of each other.
Apply the rest of the colors, one by one, following the same pattern as the copper. Start with Liquitex Basics Deep Yellow. Follow this with the Color Shift Deep Yellow, the Primary Yellow and finally the Naples Yellow poured side by side in between the black paint and the white. Make sure you carry the design down over the sides of the panel.
Step 6 - Drizzle Petal Shapes
Using a popsicle stick, drizzle petal shapes on top of the design you’ve just created. Christine suggests using gold only as an accent in this way because it has a tendency to take over. When blown out with the hairdryer, the lines will look like the veins you’d see in a flower petal.
Go over the gold petal shapes with copper, and then once more with the Liquitex Basics Deep Yellow to give it a little more depth.
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A Tip From Christine: Don’t overthink it as you’re applying the paint. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. The great thing about fluid art is that it’s forgiving and your piece will still turn out beautifully.
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Step 7 - Fill In The Bare Spots
Divots or dry spots need to be filled in or they will create breaks in the flow when you blow the paint. The body of the painting should have a generous layer of white to encourage the colors to flow across the panel. 
Once the gaps have been filled in, the surface has been evenly and generously coated with paint, and you've given one final pass with the torch, we are ready to blow the paint with the hair dryer.
Step 8 - Blow The Paint With The Hair Dryer
Holding the hairdryer upside down, angled down and with the nozzle attachment on, blow the paint from the black center out into the body of white paint to create petals. Repeat this petal by petal, blowing the paint in one fluid movement so that you don't interrupt the flow.
Repeat until you’ve created petals radiating out all around the black center.
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A Tip From Christine: Heat Guns vs Hair Dryers
Although you can use a heat gun, you will get better results from a hair dryer. A hair dryer has more power and the nozzle attachment will help to achieve a petal shape. The air from a heat gun is more concentrated and doesn't blow around as forcefully as the air from a hair dryer does. Blown air is what pushes the paint around the panel to create the ribbons and cells associated with Dutch Pour painting.
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Step 9 - Soften Harsh Lines
Blow with your mouth (or through a straw) on to soften harsh lines around the black center or on any other areas that need to be tidied up. Blowing out harsh lines will soften them and create cells. A hair dryer is too intense here and not as precise for fine detail work.
Step 10 - Torch A Final Time
Torch one more time to get rid of air bubbles. If you find any areas are too white, give them a quick pass with the torch to encourage the paint color below to rise up to the surface. 
Step 11 - Allow The Paint To Dry
The paint takes about 2 hours to dry so you have some time to play with the composition when doing a Dutch pour. The paint will be dry to the touch in 2-3 days, but won’t be ready to resin for about a month.
Step 12 - Apply A Resin Top Coat Over The Dutch Pour Painting
Wearing gloves, measure and mix the ArtResin according to the label instructions.
💡 TIP: To determine how much ArtResin you'll need to cover your panel, simply enter the dimensions into our Resin Calculator. The Calculator will let you know how much resin and hardener you'll need and even which kit to buy.
For our 16 x 20" panel, we need 11 oz total, made up of 5.5 oz of resin and 5.5 oz hardener. 
Pour the resin over the center of the piece, guiding it over the entire surface of the painting using a spreading tool. 
You can tape off the edges with painter's tape if you wish to leave them clean, or used your gloved hand to guide the resin over the edges.
Cover with a dust cover (we like using an empty cardboard box or a clean plastic tote) and allow to cure for 24 hours. 
A Resin Art Dutch Pour
In this project, ArtResin will be the pouring medium to which we will add our acrylic paint. This is a much quicker method that takes your piece from the work top to the wall in 24 hours.
Supplies You'll Need:
- 16 x 20 wood panel, painted white with acrylic paint or gesso
- Masking tape
- Stands to prop your panel up (painter’s pyramids or plastic cups)
- Plastic drop sheet to line your work surface
- Liquitex Basics White
- Amsterdam Prussian Blue
- Amsterdam Light Rose
- Pebeo Iridescent Gold
- Plastic shot glasses
- Hairdryer (with the nozzle attachment on)
- ArtResin
- Nitrile gloves
- Measuring Cup
- Mixing Stick
- Spreader
- Torch
- Dust Cover
Step 1 - Choose Your Palette
Choose colors that blend well together and won’t get muddy when they meet.
Christine suggest using 3-4 colors plus white. 
Step 2 - Prepare The ArtResin
Wearing gloves, measure and mix the ArtResin according to the label instructions. We prepared 11 oz to cover the panel, plus an extra ounce for each paint color.
Step 3 - Tint The Resin
Portion out the resin into plastic cups, add your paint and mix. We used shot glasses for the accent colors and blended the white in the mixing container.
💡TIP: Do not exceed 6% of the the total volume of resin. For example, our 1 oz shot glasses are equal to 30 ml, so we were careful not to add more than 2ml of paint. 
Step 4 - Pour A White Resin Base Over The Panel
Pour a base of white tinted resin over the entire surface of the panel. Pour a generous amount, but be sure to keep some white back for touch ups.
Torch to release bubbles.
Step 5 - Create Your Design
Starting with pink, lay the tinted resin across the panel. Laying the resin down in an S pattern will give your design some shape.
Apply the gold tinted resin in a similar S shape beside the pink, overlapping at points.
Next, apply the blue tint in a similar fashion, ensuring you overlap at some points and leave some areas where the colors are pure. 
Step 6 - Apply A Little More White
Apply a little more white on either side of your pattern. The extra white resin will encourage the tinted resin to flow with ease.
Torch out bubbles one more time.
Step 7 - Blow The Paint With The Hair Dryer
Using the hairdryer, upside down, on an angle and with the nozzle attachment on, blow the tinted resin in fluid strokes to spread it out across the board.
Cells will occur, but they make take a little more time to develop with the resin.
Step 8 - Torch, Cover And Wait
Torch out bubbles, remove dust particles with the toothpick and allow to cure for 24 hours.
There you have it - 2 different Dutch Pour techniques to create a piece of resin art of your own!
We hope you learned something from this tutorial, but if you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.
If you'd like to see more of Christine's work:
visit her website: www.colourfitz.ca
follow her on Instagram: @colour_fitz
Thanks for watching!
Before you leave, check out the differences between resin art and acrylic pour.
Do you want to learn more about resin art? Read our guides below:
- How to get thick layer of resin
- How to get a matte resin finish
- What is doming resin
- How to get a non gloss or matte finish
- What is the best way to finish edges
ArtResin: Made For Artists, By Artists.
