Next I sprayed the watercolor with a matte spray acrylic varnish to see how the colors change with matte varnish. I’ll then put a gloss varnish on one half and compare the two.
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I decided to test my theory on varnishing watercolors to make them durable like oil paintings. I put some random stuff on the ground and did a painting. This didn’t use the watercolor ground, just plain paper and shellac. Test is, can you just varnish that, or need ground?pic.twitter.com/BkVWbimQ2I
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Before I did that, I varnished this little painting. This has the watercolor ground so varnished easy, but I tried to brush on gloss first and it does lift the watercolor. Spraying on matte, wait to dry, then brush on gloss works perfectly. 1/2 is gloss, 1/2 matter. Can you tell?pic.twitter.com/UkNezBWYdI
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And here’s the result of using a gloss varnish on a watercolor. First is varnished, second is not. The varnish makes it darker but also makes the colors richer. The raw paper requires a mega ton of varnish though, so next is an aluminum panel.pic.twitter.com/MUCuK7K3wQ
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Here’s the aluminum panel with Daniel Smith Titanium white watercolor ground on it. 2 coats of normal gesso then 2 of watercolor ground. I used a hair drier to dry it fast so I can get a little texture. If you let it sit the leveling agent in the acrylic smooths it out.pic.twitter.com/ViBQUJXcgF
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Now the idea is, if you have an acrylic ground, then use shellac soap the watercolor is more stable. I can still work it like normal watercolor, lift it etc, but when I’m done I spray a matte varnish to seal it, then brush on a gloss to make it shine.
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I figure if you have shellac infused watercolor sandwiched between 6 layers of acrylic bound to an aluminim road sign then that’s probably as durable as an oil painting. Ok so why not just use acrylic? Acrylic can do a lot of watercolor things, but it’s got issues:
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Acrylic dries darker, dries up on the palette so it’s harder to work with, doesn’t quite have the same abilities when lifting and correcting, doesn’t do washes as well, takes longer to dry and gets gummy, so in a way it’s sort of bad at watercolor and oil styles.
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The one advantage acrylic has is you can paint over it effectively forever, so correction is simply painting over it again. Other than that it’s a pain.
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End of conversation
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