Holographic Bloom! 3 tries, 2 fails, FINALLY a KEEPER!

Welcome! Happy Sunday everyone! It's been another wild week with work and puppies BUT I have figured out the best way to get some studio time and it works well most days. It's still a struggle because I have to cope with the fallout from separating the pups from me for a short time. And the guilt lol. It's a dog mom thing!
In today's video, you'll see me scrape what, for all appearances, seems to be a nice bloom. I probably should have shown a closer view so you could see what I was seeing and didn't like but it's just paint. We move forward! The very first one failed epically, while it came out well, the cells drooped and melted a LOT during the drying process and the cell activator was too thick and dried with wrinkles in the center, what I refer to as "unwanted artifacts". The same thing would have happened to the second one, thus the scrape and retry. We learn as we go.
My paints are as follows:
Pillow is PPG Multipro white from Home Depot
Bloom paints are mixed with Josonja Gloss varnish and the OG Behr 8300 (yes, I still have some but not for long). I didn't thin with water or JoWa, I thinned with the varnish itself to keep some thicker consistency to the pigments since I was using so much of them. My prussian blue is Amsterdam and I mixed it down with a blueberry sized amount of mars black to deepen it. I thought it would dry really almost black but the interference pigments pulled the blue back up and showed it off. My pigments were TLP ballgown and macaw, Polycolor pear red and pearl violet. I added a little transparent tube paint (all Amsterdam pearls in corresponding colors) to reduce the meltiness(is that a word? it is now!)
My cell activator is a custom deep gold using Amsterdam deep gold and a few drops per batch of Golden fluid quinacradone nickel azo gold( discontinued and no comparable substitute so when it's gone, it's gone forever)
I now dry all of my housepaint blooms and swipes covered to slow the drying process and have a better, more predictable dried finish. If something is going to dry poorly, it's not that it dried too fast.
I have sleeping puppies at the moment due to a rather vigorous run/walk this morning so I am editing as much content as I can to upload as the week goes on. You will see quite a few quick videos pop up all week, maybe even some shorts, as I attempt to knock out a bunch of content. I am in a phase where I am tired of trying to recreate everything I see others doing. I am now going into a two tier phase that I hope will develop me more as an artist. You will see a lot of experimental techniques, probably a lot of fails and likely a lot of things you may want to try yourself. There is nothing wrong with loving something someone else has done and trying to do it yourself. I've done it many times and am still working on replicating a particular piece down by the great Niki D. a couple years ago. If you're on facebook, you know which one I mean. That being said, I am reducing my facebook presence for the time being. It's too much to keep up with social media and not rewarding for me personally. It also tends to push people in a crowd centric environment and dumb us down. I feel it's better to be your own self, do what you enjoy and not worry about whether other artists appreciate you. Those who love your work will follow you no matter where you hang out.
Thank you so much for watching, you are all geniunely appreciated! If you have questions please drop them in the comments and I will answer as soon as I am able. If you enjoy my content please consider subscribing. Like, share, comments....every little bit helps.
KZbin is pushing me to monetize my content. What are your thought's on this? Personally, I think they make enough money off my hard work while never once compensating me. If I monetize, they make even more while I make nothing. I haven't made a decision and I don't feel compelled to be pushed in that direction. I'd love to hear your thoughts. THANK YOU!!! Much LOVE!

[@catpender9807]

Gosh that's gorgeous

[@vegasmainiac7745]

Thanks Cat💜

[@AugustsAcrylicArt]

This is beautiful! I like how it stretched out with the lacing all over and you did a nice job with the cells in the middle. At first I thought there wouldn’t be many because of all the CA, but it worked!

[@vegasmainiac7745]

Thanks! I was worried about the center too, especially with the double ca. When it started to get defined as I spun it out I was so relieved!