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Cracking and Crazing in Paint Pour Art

Hi👋🏼  Have you ever had a paint pour crack and craze? I have… lots of times! In my recent project, I painted on a large wood ornament and I left too much paint on the surface:

Well, the paint on my orange large wood ornament cracked and crazed when it dried. I had a feeling it would do this. When I went to check on it while it was drying, I saw that I left a lot of paint in the center of the ornament. What is cracking and crazing? I have created a blog post that explains everything: CLICK HERE! I did not like the dried design of this ornament. I am usually OK with the cracking and crazing but I think it looks wrong in this piece and I really do not like all of the orange colors. I decided to pour over this piece and try again… I am glad I did!

YouTube Video: Painting Over a Cracked & Crazed Fluid Art Large Wood Ornament… STUNNING Final Result!
Cracking and Crazing in paint pour art
The dried, cracked, and crazed art.
Cracking and Crazing in paint pour art
The “pour over” finished art.

What is Cracking and Crazing?

In acrylic paint pouring, crazing is a term used to describe cracks or lines that appear once the painting has dried. Crazing happens when the top layer of the painting dries faster than the layers underneath, which are still wet. There are several reasons why the top layer will dry more quickly than the bottom layers.

crack /krak/

  1. a line on the surface of something along which it has split without breaking into separate parts. “a hairline crack down the middle of the glass”
  2. break or cause to break without complete separation of the parts. “the ice all over the lake had cracked”

craze /krāz/

  1. a crack in a surface or coating (as of glaze or enamel)
  2. produce a network of fine cracks on (a surface). “the lake was frozen over but crazed with cracks” 3. to develop a mesh of fine cracks

I have created a blog post that goes into more detail about cracking and crazing in paint pour art and how to help prevent it. Click here to learn more!

Large Wood Ornament Project

Here are the videos, in order, so you can see how I painted the large wood ornament, the dried cracked and crazed result, the “pour over”, and the final dried result of this project.

Supplies Used in the Large Wood Ornament Project

Video 1: Painting a Large Wood Ornament with Acrylic Paint Pouring Techniques

Hi👋🏼 I had so much fun painting this large wood ornament! I used the Cloud Effect/Tree Ring paint pouring technique for this project. You will notice that I did speed up the video around 00:01:30… I had to step away from my painting to pay attention to my cats for about 5 minutes. I do enjoy watching the paint move during this part!

Video 2: Painting Over a Cracked & Crazed Fluid Art Large Wood Ornament… STUNNING Final Result!

Hi👋🏼Well, the paint on my orange large wood ornament cracked and crazed when it dried. I had a feeling it would do this. When I went to check on it while it was drying, I saw that I left a lot of paint in the center of the ornament. What is cracking and crazing? I have created a blog post that explains everything: https://paintpouracademy.com/cracking-crazing-problems/

I did not like the dried design of this ornament. I am usually OK with the cracking and crazing but I think it looks wrong in this piece and I really do not like all of the orange colors. I decided to pour over this piece and try again… I am glad I did!

Video 3: DRIED RESULT… Painting Over a Cracked & Crazed Fluid Art Large Wood Ornament

Hi👋🏼 Well, the paint on my orange large wood ornament cracked and crazed when it dried. I had a feeling it would do this. When I went to check on it while it was drying, I saw that I left a lot of paint in the center of the ornament. I did not like the dried design of this ornament. I am usually OK with the cracking and crazing but I think it looks wrong in this piece and I really do not like all of the orange colors. I decided to pour over this piece and try again… I am glad I did!

This is a super fun project and makes for an AMAZING Christmas decoration for my home. Let me know what you think!

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