How can I make a word appear on a canvas using paint and water?

[hoodleehoo]

cool word appearing in paint project

I'm doing a video and I thought it'd be cool to make a specific word appear on a canvas. My idea was to give the illusion that I brushed a horizontal line of paint on the top of the canvas and the paint runs down the canvas forming the word (in an eerie type of way).

My initial thought was some kind of invisible chemical that turns a vivid color when mixed with water, so the chemical would be brushed on the canvas in the form of the word (and the running paint). Instead of paint being brushed onto it, water would actually be.

Not sure if that would work or not. The other idea was to do it with something brushed in the negative space of the canvas that would repel the paint, keeping it confined to the pattern.

What do you think? Any ideas how to achieve it? :)

 

[chemisttree]

I remember paint books that used micronized watercolor pigments and only needed to be brushed with water to dissolve and 'magically' produce colors.

 

[Studiot]

I suggest using a morphing program to generate the intermediate frames from a line to the letters dripping.

You can do it left to right, then rotate the result 90 degrees to get top to bottom.