Hawaii Fluid Art Salt Lake City — Attraction in Salt Lake City

We went to Hawaii Fluid Art for a fun impromptu date night expecting a huge impersonal class, little to no direction, and an aloof instructor indifferent to our presence. Fortunately none of those expectations were met, and we had a unique experience full of decisions, colors, and instruction at the hands of our capable instructor Sam. We were the only ones in the store at the time, we had ample opportunity to change our minds and alter the experience and produce something unique together.

A couple things that you should know going in: You will get paint on your hands for sure, potentially on your pants and shoes as well, so wear the appropriate clothing. You’ll need to decide on a pattern that you like from the samples they have hanging up. Some prep for that fact would have been good to know but perhaps the spur of the moment decision making is a good thing for some people. Most of the samples that you see hanging around the store have a glossy finish, and they look substantially better than the matte pictures. That’s an extra $50, so plan accordingly. To me, if you don’t spring for the gloss the painting you produce will probably end up in the garbage after a week or so on your fridge, much like your macaroni art projects from grade school. If you’re planning on attending as a couple, there’s some options you might want to know ahead of time like; you can both work on one huge canvas, work on separate canvases and bring them together during the paint pour, work separately, and probably other options that weren’t immediately presented to us. Either way, ask your instructor and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of examples to work from.

All in all, as a colorblind husband who’s really not to particular about much of anything without an explicit utilitarian purpose, I found the process enjoyable, creative,...

Terrible experience, definitely not worth the price. We booked the fluid art for four people in advance. When we arrived, they were running a special so all the walk in’s paid about half of what we paid. I don’t think it’s fair that we were penalized for booking in advance. This discrepancy could’ve easily been fixed by offering us the resin upgrade for free. The experience was terrible. We were the first to arrive essentially right when they opened for our pre-scheduled slot. There was only one employee working so we spent about an hour and a half in the shop and only spent about 15 to 20 minutes actually doing the art. The employee was very charismatic and fun, but could not handle all the walk-ins. We asked questions about what type of paint was used in the art we chose for inspiration per their instructions and were told it was glitter that was added on afterwards. After doing the art and adding the glitter, it was very clear that the painting I showed them did not use glitter and instead used a glittery type of paint. This was very disappointing and frankly the cheap glitter ruined the art piece. You can see the difference in the photos, one used silver glitter after the fact, and the other used a glittery copper paint. We chose to do the resin because without it, the final products do not look anything like the photos on the website (since they are all shown wet) or the bulk of the art in the shop. The resin was quite a costly add. In addition to all of this, when we picked up our paintings all of them had scratches or drops of excess resin from other paintings dropping onto them. I would not recommend doing this experience, very...

We did really enjoy the experience and our pieces turned out great (though one piece does have a hair on it that does not belong to any of us) but there is no mention anywhere on the site of the extra charge for resin, which I think is a bit deceptive. $30 extra per 10x20, and $15 extra per 12x12 (more for larger pieces) is a significant difference if you’re not expecting it. And though resin is not required, the pieces really don’t look great without it. I felt a bit bamboozled. For transparency, you really should update your website to reflect the true pricing.

Update: I am updating my review because they did get back to me about the hair on the painting. I was told they could remove the hair and re-resin the piece and it would be good as new. I have not been able to bring it back in yet, as we have been sick, but I appreciate the customer service to that end.

As for the pricing, I was told “in regards to your feedback about our website structure with the resin finish I put in a formal complaint for you and forwarded your review to our corporate side. That is a kind of corporate structure policy so it's not something we can directly change for you right now.” So maybe not the fault of the specific shop, but I do still feel like that is shady business. They were very kind and offered a refund on the resin for the piece that had...