Drip and pour painting in Easel by Zaweba

Jackson Pollock laid his canvases on the floor and let paint fall onto them from a stick. Fluid artists today pour acrylic onto a board and tilt it until the colours flow into marbled cells. Both rely on gravity and wet paint, and both are part of Easel by Zaweba.

Easel brings these together in a set of presets and tools: a Pollock drips preset, the pour tool with silicone cells, drip and flick, and pouring acrylic. All of them run when the canvas is tilted.

Why gravity matters here

Easel simulates fluid on the surface. The canvas tilt dial sets an angle and direction, and wet paint runs downhill in proportion to how wet and thin it is. Thin, fluid paint like pouring acrylic moves a lot. Thick oil barely moves. Dry paint never moves.

That is what makes drip and pour work possible. You are not drawing the drips. You are setting up the conditions and letting them happen.

A Pollock style drip painting

Start from the Pollock drips preset. Choose a large surface, such as stretched canvas or primed cotton duck. Keep the canvas flat to begin with.

Use drip and flick to throw paint across the surface in long, looping movements. Change colour every so often. Work the whole canvas rather than one area, the way Pollock walked around his.

Then think about tilt. A slight tilt lets some lines sag and run. Keep it subtle. A flat canvas gives the classic tangled web, a tilted one adds runs.

An acrylic pour with cells

Choose a smooth surface such as a gessoed panel. Use the pour tool to lay down colours in pools or stripes. Silicone, in real fluid art, is added to make cells, the round openings where lower colours show through. Easel's pour tool includes silicone cells for that look.

Now tilt. Turn the dial so the paint flows in one direction, then change it to spread it another way. Watch the cells open. When you like what you see, press Dry now to lock the paint in place so tilt can no longer move it. Ctrl+0 lays the canvas flat again.

Timing and control

Drying speed matters. Faster drying gives you less time to move the paint, slower gives more. The slider runs from 0.25 to 4 times. For pour work, a slower setting gives more time to play with tilt.

Undo includes tilt runs and drying, so you can experiment with tilt angle and step back if it goes too far.

Getting a clean finish

Fluid art can turn to mud if too many colours run into each other. Keep the palette limited, three or four colours plus a white, and choose ones that mix well. Easel mixes colour the way pigment does, so a pour of blue and yellow will give you greens where they meet.

When you have something you love, Dry now. Then export, or keep the time-lapse. Few things are as satisfying to watch as a pour opening up, and Easel by Zaweba records a frame while paint is moving, so the whole flow is there to replay.