Epoxy Resin Painting for Beginners: Epoxy Resin Paint Pour Art

This post shares my galaxy-inspired epoxy resin paint pour art plus some epoxy resin painting for beginners tips. It’s an easy and forgiving way to make a beautiful and unique piece of epoxy resin art for your home! This post originally appeared on bybrittanygoldwyn.com.

Epoxy Resin Painting for Beginners

Hey all, I’m really excited to share this project with you all today! For the past year I’ve been trying to incorporate more skills into my crafting/DIY lineup, and I often find myself thinking of projects I can use new materials on.

I’ve seen loads of stunning epoxy waterfall tables and whatnot on Instagram, and I’ve also seen a bit of epoxy art. I decided to get my feet wet working with epoxy resin with this project: my galaxy-inspired epoxy resin paint pour art.

Ahhh, I love it. And like a lot of other “abstract” style projects, it’s very forgiving. There really isn’t a design plan going in…the paint just kind of goes where it wants to go. Oh, that’s because of the hair dryer. More on that in a bit, because there is some prep work you need to complete to knock this project out.

Here’s what I used:

1/4″ plywood (I used 2 ft by 2 ft)
Fine-grit sandpaper
Envirotex Lite Epoxy Resin, I used a 16-ounce kit and it was just enough for my 2 ft by 2 ft plywood
Assorted acrylic paints—I used DecoArt 2-oz acrylic paints like these in black, metallic blackish, white, and gray.
Ultra fine glitter—I used this DecoArt Glamour Dust. I also mixed in a bit of DecoArt Galaxy Glitter in Clear Ice Comet into some of the white paint pours.
Plastic disposable drop cloth
Disposable gloves and mask
Paint pyramids
Small paper cups
Larger paper cups and disposable stirrers (I broke kabob skewers in half)
High-powered hair dryer…one of those piddly hotel hair dryers probably won’t cut it. I just used my regular hair dryer
Primer or paint with primer in it and small roller

And here’s my epoxy resin art tutorial!

Here’s the video tutorial. I highly recommend watching it as a complement to the written steps here. It’s tough to put a resin art tutorial into works…sometimes it’s just easier to show it. Also, it’s weirdly satisfying to watch the hairdryer blow around colored epoxy resin.

And here is a detailed walk-through to accompany the video.

Step 1: First I sanded my piece of plywood with a piece of fine-grit sandpaper to smooth out any rough areas. Then I used a paint + primer I had on hand to paint the entire piece using a small roller.

You can use just a regular primer, but I had the paint + primer combo sample from a recent project, so I used that. You just want to seal the wood.

New to resin? Check out my tips for using shiny vs. matte resin silicone molds, as well as my full tutorial on two ways to make your own silicone mold!

Step 2: Once the paint dried completely, I laid out the plastic drop cloth and set the plywood piece on paint pyramids. The pouring can get messy, so you want to make sure the plastic drop cloth covers a sufficient area. Then I got to mixing. With disposable gloves and a mask on, I started mixing my epoxy resin and paint colors.

I went color by color, so I mixed the epoxy resin and black first. Then poured that and moved quickly on to the next color. Things can start settling quickly, so make sure you read all instructions and come up with a measuring plan before you start!

I decided it would be easiest to pour equal parts of the two-part epoxy resin into small dixie cups and then pour those into a bigger cup where I’d add the color.

This worked very well! Just have a trash can nearby so throw the cups in when you’re done with each pour. I used fresh little cups for each new color. And an extra set of disposable gloves to switch out.

Step 3: Continue pouring whatever color you want. I’d recommend getting all of your pours done in 15 minutes or less, so plan the color in advance. Don’t get too bent out of shape about how the colors look poured on. They’ll move and mix.

Speaking of, I stood the piece on its side (see video for more) to mix the colors up a bit and cover more surface area. I also added a bit of light glitter to the white paint pours.

Step 4: Once I’d finished all pours, I grabbed my high-powdered hair dryer and starting shooting it (on high powder and high heat) various directions to “blow out” and mix the paint.

You can create some pretty interesting patterns. I also shook some ultra fine DecoArt Glamour Dust glitter over the piece to give it a hint of sparkle. It’s very discreet.

using a hair dryer to blow around the resin

I also used a rag to wipe the sides when I was done using the hair dryer. You’ll have drips on the edges. And a lot of people recommend a propane torch at this point to pop bubbles in the epoxy resin as it dries. However, I didn’t need one. I wonder if the high-powered hair dryer on high heat helped with that? I’m not sure, but happy to report all is well!

Don’t freak if this takes a while to dry. About 24 hours after I’d finished using the hair dryer, it was nearly dry, but there were a few stickier spots left over. I let it sit in the garage curing for about 72 hours total and it was good after that.

What do you think of the technique? I’m pretty excited to work with epoxy resin for another project now! Here are a bunch of pics of the piece. I tried to get a variety of detail shots so you can really see the patterns up close.

Some of them give me a galaxy vibe, while some give me a crashing waves in the ocean vibe. Not entirely the faux marble look I was shooting for at the beginning, but beautiful nonetheless.