I have seen a few people using wall paint in their fluid acrylic pours so I just wanted to add my experience of using household emulsion in paintings so that people are aware of some pitfalls.
Of course art being art, you can use exactly what you want to in paintings, there really are no boundaries. Although you just need to be aware of the qualities of things that you are using and the repercussions of using low quality materials just to save some money.
When thinking about using things like wall paint you may think that there is no problem in using this kind of paint as it is widely reported that artists like Jackson Pollock used household paint. In fact in his case he used synthetic resin-based paints which are not the same as household emulsion.
Economical
Household paint tends to be much cheaper than quality acrylic paint and you may have some hanging around the house that is going to waste so it can be a very economical thing to be able to use. You can also get very similar effects when using wall paint in your acrylic pours so in that respect it doesn’t really make any difference.
However, house paint is only mean to last around 10 years or less so why would you want to create a painting that has a shelf life this short? 10 years is not very long in the life of a painting.
The things to think about mainly are if you are selling your work commercially and what kind of quality you want to your work. For example if you are selling your work through a gallery then you are probably going to want to show that you are using high quality materials rather than cheap house paint that does not have any guaranteed archival qualities to it. But even if you are selling your work through your website or at art fairs or exhibitions, you don’t want to be selling something that may not last as long as the buyer may expect.
Quality
As the quality of household paint is lower than acrylic artists paint, the painting may end up suffering from flaking or fading. However, it may be a while until this happens so if you only expect your paintings to be hung for less than 10 years then you may be OK.
One way of thinking about the quality is to take a picture off the wall that has been hanging in the same spot for a few years – you will probably see that the wall behind the painting is a different colour to the wall around it. Household paint will fade in time so your colours on your painting will also do this.
You may think about using the household paint as a base coat so that the actual color will not show. This is all very well but household paint is not made to have the right qualities to adhere properly (and for a long time) to the canvas (or whatever you are using to paint on). It will not withstand humidity or the flex of the canvas as it is not designed to do that.
Elasticity
The other problem with household paint is that it does not have the elasticity of acrylic artists paint. You can test this by painting on a piece of loose canvas with both paints. Leave the paint to dry and then try and roll up the canvas. In the case of the household paint it will quite possibly peel off the canvas as you roll it up. The acrylic artist’s paint should not. Obviously if your canvas remains tight and stretched then this should not be too much of an issue – but what if your client decides they want to restretch the canvas?
So, if you are going to use wall paint for your paint pouring then just have a think about what you want to achieve in terms of quality. If you do use household paint you should really advise your buyers of this fact so that they are aware that they are not getting a product that is designed to last.
Personally as an artist I want to provide quality work that uses the appropriate materials for the job. it is fine to use low-grade materials for testing and experimentation but if you want something to last then make sure that you use materials that do the job.