Abstract

In splat painting, a collection of liquid droplets is projected onto the substrate by imposing a controlled acceleration to a paint-loaded brush. To unravel the physical phenomena at play in this artistic technique, a series of experiments are conducted where the amount of expelled liquid and the resulting patterns on the substrate are systematically characterized as a function of the liquid and brush properties. The experimental trends are rationalized by simple physical models, revealing the existence of an inertia-dominated flow in the anisotropic, porous tip of the brush. We argue that in splat painting artists intuitively tune their parameters to work in this regime, which may also play a role in other pulsed flows, like violent expiratory events or sudden geophysical processes. Learning from an artistic practice provides new insight and perspective to the study of flow physics. Furthermore, studies like this allow us to reach wider audiences. While discussing art practice, we convey the importance of the physical understanding of every day flows.