Some time ago I made this guide as part of a Secret Santa exchange I did. Now I am sharing it with everyone else!

Read this first!

I have two versions of the instructions, the Thorough Instructions and the Simple Instructions. The Thorough Instructions are what you read through to get all the details and understand the process, and the Simple Instructions are to have on hand and  run you through the process while you are doing it.

The Simple Instructions are located at the bottom of this post. 

It's like one of those actually useful recipe blog posts that has detailed information about how to make the dish instead of just a sentimental story about someone's grandmother.

Thorough Instructions

Very Thorough Instructions on how to do Flip Cup/Dirty Pour Paintings!

I scoured the internet for information about flip cups when I was learning to do them myself. There are plenty of videos that show you people doing them, and I encourage you to watch them, but I found the nitty-gritty step-by-steps were sorely lacking. After a lot of reading and a lot of experimentation I produced a process that worked really well for me, which I will now share with you!

Things you will need:

Acrylic paint -

Most brands will work fine, so don’t bother buying anything expensive. In all honesty the benefits that more “premium” paints offer sort of become moot with this kind of technique as they are intended for people actually painting with brushes. Pshaw. I’ve used a lot of Liquitex Basics. I won’t say don’t use them, but I’ll note that craft paints like Folk Art have given me mixed results, and generally aren’t as vivid, color-wise. No matter what brand you use keep in mind that they will dry a little bit darker on the canvas (applying a gloss coat once it is dry can usually bring them back out again, but will also exaggerate any incongruities in the surface).

You can choose as many colors as you wish, though I’ve found the sweet spot to be about four or five. It is not a bad idea to include a white or a black, but it’s also not mandatory. A common practice is to use one of them as your first or last color (more on that later) or both.

A pouring medium - 

If you are just starting out then a great material to use is Mod Podge, as it is ready-made and already a good working consistency.

If, in the future, you decide you like the process and don’t want to spend more money than you have to then you can just buy a large jug of Elmer’s All-Purpose Glue and water it down (in your now empty Mod Podge container of course) at three parts glue to one part water. In either case you will eventually be adding more water when you actually go to do your pours. I’ve found that the glue gives a final finish similar to Mod Podge’s Satin, which was always my preferred anyway.

A canvas - 

This can be whatever size you want. If you’ve never made one before I recommend starting with a smallish square canvas. You can get them pre-stretched at any craft store or online, in a number of sizes.

I personally use a lot of rectangular canvas boards but these, admittedly, can be trickier to maneuver the paint over and require being mounted to a backing after completion, as they tend to bend a little while drying. It’s probably easier to stick with standard canvases with wooden frames, though I see no reason you couldn’t use any surface you wanted – wood, glass, or whatever else strikes your fancy.

Silicone lubricant -

This is important! This is what creates the cool cells and effects. You don’t need very much, only a few drops for each color. You can use a personal lubricant, as long as it is silicone based, or you can buy, for instance, a bottle of treadmill lubricant on Amazon. Any silicone lubricant will do.

Cups and stirring utensils -

You always want one more cup than the amount of colors you choose to layer the paints in before you do your flip. You want a clean stirring tool for each color, as you will be mixing your paint, pouring medium and silicone. You also want a clean rod or knife, which I’ll explain more about later.

A workplace -

Flip cup and dirty pours are messy processes! You will be losing a lot of paint over the edge of your canvas, so you want something to catch it, such as a plastic tub. You also want to raise your canvas out of the soupy mess that will form in the bottom of your tub or bin. Upside down plastic cups work well for this purpose.

I use two tin roasting pans taped together with an ice cube tray cut in half, placed upside down on either side to hold the ends up. It looks super silly, but it works like a charm.

A cooking/camp torch or heat gun -

While theoretically you could get some results without it, I wouldn’t recommend it (in no small part because it’s just so much fun). Heat causes a reaction in the silicone, drawing it to the surface and drastically increasing the production of cells

The Process:

The first thing you will want to do is get your work area set up. I already talked a bit about that in the entry above. Just make sure you have everything laid out so when you have a cup full of paint you aren’t scrambling to get your supplies together.

Next you will mix your colors, one color per cup. The ratio of Mod Podge to paint is... honestly not incredibly specific, so don’t fret too much. You want somewhere between 1:2 and 1:1 Mod Podge and paint. Same if you use a glue mix (granted you’ve thinned it to the same consistency as Mod Podge). 

Do not add the silicone yet.

Note: adding the glue will appear to lighten the color. Don't worry, once the pouring medium dries, it’s original vibrancy will be restored

After you’ve gotten your mixture, you’ll want to further thin it by adding water. I use a spray bottle, mostly so I can control how much I add. Now, the most common quote concerning consistency you’ll find on the internet is “about the consistency of coffee creamer” but in my experience this comes out a little thin and runny for my tastes. Maybe I just use lousy coffee creamer. You want it to be a little thinner than warm diner pancake syrup - not the expensive real maple syrup, but the cheap stuff that’s mostly flavored corn syrup. If you use too much water the colors will mix and turn muddy, and if you use too little the paint will not flow as well and will create a thick layer on your canvas. Thick layers contribute to “crazing” which is when the paint dries at different speeds and creates rifts on the surface of the painting. But there isn’t a specific “right answer”. Find what works for you. Stir the paints as thoroughly as you can to avoid bumps of paint on the surface of your canvas.

Get all of your paints mixed up to your liking. At this point I like to plan ahead what order I want my paints to be layered in. There is a lot that can be written about how paints interact – certain pigments (such as white) are heavier, and will be more prone to sink, for instance – but in all practicality, most people probably won’t get involved with this sort of head math. You can find information about it online if you want to get your technical on. Mostly you just want to consider what colors will “rise up” through the other layers of colors when your cells form. The first color you add to your cup will be the last color to hit your canvas, so all the other colors will blossom up from underneath it. Don’t layer them yet, just mentally consider it.

After you have all your ducks in a row – or cups in order, as the case may be – you now, and only now, add the silicone. Not much – two or three drops per cup. You really want to do this as late into the process as possible, as the silicone will start a chemical reaction as soon as it is introduced to the paint. Do not mix it in very thoroughly! The more you mix the silicone the smaller the cells will be when they form. For large cells you only want to stir the paint maybe once or twice with your utensil. Just one or two circles in the paint. Seriously. Stir a few more times for medium cells, and pretty decently for tiny ones (while I can’t verify this for sure, extreme mixing seems to lead to thin threads surrounding other cells, which, admittedly, can also be a nice effect). You can use this variation in cell sizes to create dynamics in your painting. Maybe you want green to have big broad cells that are full of tiny yellow cells. Maybe you want your whole painting to sit in a sea of metallic bubbles. Whatever you aim for – well, actually, you probably won’t get it. But you will get something very, very cool.

Now you can pour your individual cups into the last clean cup, layer by layer. How you do this will effect your final project – pouring faster will make the paint fall harder and penetrate the lower layers, further mixing the colors up when you pour it out onto the canvas. If you’ve mixed your paints too watery, you will notice them start to mix into each other at this stage instead of layering in distinct sections (like a geological survey). This doesn’t mean your painting is ruined forever, but it will look a bit different once all is said and done.

Once your final cup is prepped you want to put the cup on the canvas. The best way I’ve found to do this is to flip the canvas over and place it upside down on your now full cup. Very carefully press the canvas down onto the cup while turning both cup and canvas over, maintaining the tight seal so the paint doesn’t drip out. You want to do this with some speed, otherwise your paints will all mix together when you turn it over and the results won’t be as dramatic. Place the now right-side up canvas with upside-down cup onto it’s base in your workstation. Let it sit a few moments.

Sometimes I slide the cup a tiny bit to break the suction seal.

Now the fun part. Rip that cup off! How you do this will obviously change the way your final painting looks but, as before, there is no “right way”. If you are worried, just pull it straight up at a good speed. Can’t go wrong with that. The paint will blossom out below it quite beautifully. Don’t worry about drips – they’ll all get worked out by the time you are done. Some people splash colors around at this point, or experiment with other techniques, but don’t worry about that just yet. One thing at a time.

Don’t get too attached to how it looks right now, it will change a lot by the time we are done.

Now, before you move any paint around on your canvas, you want to take a clean utensil, such as a knife, your finger, a dowel, or the back of a paintbrush and take the edge of this growing pool of paint and drag it all the way out to the edge. You don’t want to pull much, just a little. All we are doing is creating a slick surface that will allow the paint to travel freely and smoothly over the surface. This will keep your cells from distorting too much as you move the paint around. On a small square canvas, it's very likely that you'll have enough paint to cover without assistance and can safely skip this step.

Now pick that canvas up, keeping it hovering over your workspace. Gradually move the paint over the surface. In my experience it is best to only move the paint in any one direction at a time – either side, up or down, or at the diagonal. Always return the canvas to a “neutral” position before changing to a different direction. You will lose a lot of paint in this step, it will change continually. Don’t worry about it. You do have some control – if there are areas you like better than others, you can strive to expand them or keep them. If there are things you hate, just slough them off.

If everything has gone right you should see cells forming while you are doing this. Très cool.

Once everything is basically where you like it, you can take your pouring cup and touch up the edges if you have any blank spots, or just drag paint down with your fingers.

Now you can take your torch or heat gun and very carefully add some heat to the surface of the canvas. Pick areas you think would benefit from some tighter concentrations of cells. Or like… everywhere. Season to taste. Just… be careful not to light the paint on fire. It won’t catch really, but it will create some less than aesthetically pleasing textures. (You can also, if you choose, add heat right after you pull the cup from the canvas – while it is still a big paint bubble – This will start creating cells that you can drag out and make larger.)

Now you just let it dry. It might take awhile, about a day or two, although it’s safe to move once the paint is set and no longer fluid. Just lift it from below and don’t touch the paint itself. Once it is completely dry you might notice that there are still some conspicuous wet spots across the surface. This is most likely just leftover silicone, having risen to the surface of the paint. If you are sure it’s otherwise completely dry you can just wipe those off with a soft cloth or paper towel, taking care not to distend the canvas. Now all that’s left is to hang it on your wall!

You did it!

Please feel free to message me if you have any questions!

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Simple Instructions

Simple Instructions on how to do Flip Cup/Dirty Pour Paintings!

Things you will need:

• Acrylic paint in different colors
• Mod Podge
• Canvas
• Silicone lubricant
• Cups and stirring utensils, one for each color plus a larger one for pouring them all into
• A workplace with a bin or pan bigger than your canvas to catch excess paint 
• Something to hold the canvas up out of the paint in your bin, such as upside down plastic cups
• A cooking/camp torch or heat gun

The Process:

• Arrange your work space and get all of your materials ready.
• Mix your paint with Mod Podge, one color per cup. Use roughly one part paint to two parts Mod Podge. 
• Thin your Mod Podge paint mixture with water until it reaches a consistency thicker than coffee creamer and thinner than corn syrup. 
• Figure out the order you want to arrange your colors in the final empty cup. 
• Add a few drops of silicone to each cup, as late into the process as you can. Don’t mix very thoroughly – two or three complete circles will do for large cells. The more you stir, the smaller the cells will be. 
• Pour your paint into the last empty cup. The first color your pour will be last to go on the canvas. 
• Place your canvas face down on your now full cup. 
• Carefully flip the cup and canvas over and place them onto the raised parts of your workspace. Hold the cup tight to the canvas so it doesn’t spill.
• Let the cup sit a few moments, then quickly pull it away from the canvas.
• Don’t get too attached to how it looks right now, it will change a lot by the time we are done. 
• Drag the very edge of your paint bubble out to the edge of your canvas to slick the surface and allow the paint to move freely. 
• Hold the canvas up over your workplace. Tilt the canvas to move the paint until all parts of the canvas are coated. Try not to move it in too many ways at once or the image will distort.
• Apply heat using your torch or heat gun, as desired. 
• Touch up the edges as needed.

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