Experimenting with Liquids

Earlier this year, my Creative Arts Initiative brought me to experiment with something I had seen on social media. These images involve carefully mixing different liquids together at specific times, creating miniature worlds on the liquids surface and sub surface.

The process starts with 2% milk as the base liquid in your container. You then add acrylic paints in sections over the milk. I have found the best method is to thin the paint down in separate cups with milk so that it isn't too thick, but you also don't want it too thin either.

At this point, you are ready to make the magic happen. There are a few different liquids you can use as the catalyst to activate the reaction. I found dish soap or turpentine to yield the best results. Adding a few drops will cause the reaction you see in the images below. Then to create the small orbs - pour in oil! You can experiment with different types of oils, but this video used canola oil.

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO OF THE PROCESS

It takes quite a bit of trial and error to obtain the perfect mixture. The scenes you see below are all taken with a macro lens so these are very small scenes. The little spheres you see are as small as a grain of rice.

I also experimented with Skittles in water. This is a much simpler project. Simply place your Skittles in a tray, and then fill with water. The color will get pulled out of the Skittles and fill your tray completely with color. You can mess around with different arrangements for different results. A popular arrangement is a large circle of Skittles, which then pulls all the color inward to a center spot.

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO OF THE PROCESS

Enjoy the photos below, share if you have tried either of these experiments yourself, and happy experimenting!

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