Pitcher Plant Chain Pull Art 1st Attempts

In this Instructable I would like to show you my 1st attempts with the chain pull method of creating artwork, it's not as easy as the experts make it look, but with a little practice it can produce something worthy of showing off on a wall.

I'd seen various chain pull art images and what springs to mind for something to paint was the Pitcher plant with it's long flute, Perfect! and for this Instructable it's going to be abstract! White on Black.

I don't have any experience at all with painting, apart from decorating our house on a few occasions so this is a proper learning curve.

I sourced some ball chain, the type I ordered was the chain with hardly any gap, there are different types, some had a 2mm gap between the balls.

I had some white and black Acrylic paint from a previous project so game on!

Black and White Acrylic Paint(Amazon)

2mm Ball Chain(Amazon)

Plastic cups

Kitchen Roll(It gets messy)

Paint Spatula or brush.

Water

Plywood board

For this technique the paint has to be fluid, the method seems to be mixing the Acrylic Paint with PVA glue and splash of water until a pouring consistency is achieved this I did 1 Part paint and 1/2 Part PVA glue and add the water to suit, stir well!

The best vessels to decant the paint into are the narrow nozzle plastic squeezy bottles, these are really cheap on Amazon but make the task so much easier, lines or dots can be achieved with some accuracy using this method.

I didn't have any Canvases but what I did have was some small plywood board off cuts, these would do nicely for practicing and when I'm feeling more confident I can then purchase a Canvas and create a masterpiece! In my dreams perhaps:(

So the first job was to apply some of the mixed black acrylic to the board, there looks to be no finesse to this, the spatula is used to move the paint around the canvas or board until a uniform depth of paint is achieved.

With the Black Acrylic applied we can now move onto the chain:

The boards I had weren't that big so I cut the chain to suit the board really, I then dipped 3 lengths of chain into a small plastic bottle containing the White Acrylic Paint.

The technique is to apply the white covered chain whilst the black on the canvas is still fluid.

The next part is the trickiest, you have to draw the chain out from the bottle slowly, you don't want too much paint on the chain, then dangling it very gently over the work piece, you create a one sided outline starting from the top and creating curves on the way down, this creates the petals of the flutes, finishing off at the bottom centre of the board.

The same process is applied with the opposite chain, creating like a mirrored effect and then the 3rd chain is run down the centre of the board.

Now the method is this, you carefully grasp all 3 chains, and then using your other hand you draw the chain through your fingers very slowly and as if by magic the chain follow's the curves creating the flutes, pull the chains away and drop them into some water for re-use(I think)

I only had 3 boards and the first one I had used to try and create some bird wings with white and gold Acrylic drops onto the black Acrylic, this didn't work out to well but with practice it could, and when it dried the effect was really cool.(See Photos)

That's about it really, you just put them to one side to dry and then frame them if they are good enough.

Assumptions:

Initially when I saw this Art I thought it looked fairly easy, its not, its really easy to make a mess of things.

A creative mind could do anything using these techniques and some artists use different materials to manipulate the paint creating some really wonderful and different Artwork, It's a form of art I would like to continue with and experiment with different methods.

My own thoughts prior to starting with this type of art is have everything prepared, All paint mixed, chain cut to length, water at the ready, Kitchen towel to hand you will need it.

To be continued.....

That concludes another Instructable, hope you enjoyed and thanks for looking.