Thanks for waking this thread back up, Staggerlee. I’ve often looked at the aquapasto/GA paste and wondered how people used it.

I just bought some Aquapasto and will post after I use it. Also found there is a watercolor version of meguilp/megilp (sp?) that I want to try that uses fumed silica like that used by oil painters. I think it is gum arabic and fumed silica.

I suspect that it is something similar with the black watercolour ground! :rolleyes:

It seems to me that impasto effects in watercolour cancel the nature of the medium that is its fluidity.
Not to mention that I can’t see the point by the time that when you do such effects on a watercolour painting you make it look like a mixed media painting. And you add the silica that is not an ingredient that is included by default in watercolours. It’s like adding acrylic medium on watercolours. You introduce a completely different ingredient on your medium that probably changes its character and its characteristics too.

Now.. If the point is to make your watercolours look like mixed media then why not work directly on mixed media where you’ll have the freedom to use a plethora of different painting materials, all combined in one artwork, instead of trying to transform watercolours on something that they aren’t by their nature?
Why to restrict your self on one medium if you want the characteristics and the texture of many others?

—-

By adding more Gum Arabic on your pigments you make the paint thicker. You can’t apply though such a thick paint on a flexible surface without having cracking problems later on.
That is a problem of course that you encounter with gouache and casein. They are not the best mediums for thick impastos on flexible surfaces.

So by changing the ratio of Gum Arabic and pigment and get a thicker paint that can work nicely on a non flexible surface and making your watercolours behave like gouache or casein, then you’ll probably need to prime your thicker non flexible surface and so then you’ll have to use gesso or a watercolour ground…
In other words it will be like paint with gouache or casein.

So tell me please.. why not turn to gouache and casein from the very start, instead to trouble yourself to turn watercolours in some other medium?

To conclude.What I see is that the market is full of binders and other auxiliary products that their only purpose is to transform various media on something that they are not. Watercolours to casein or gouache, acrylics to watercolours, oils to acrylics and the list goes on.

That is the reason why I referred previously to the black watercolour ground that is another product of that kind.
A black primer for watercolours. Well this doesn’t work with watercolours because it messes up with another fundamental characteristic of watercolours that is their transparency. You can’t work with transparent colours on a black background.
Why?
Because… It can’t be done. It doesn’t work.

No, you don’t have to prime your surface with gouache, casein, or thicker watercolor. Just use watercolor paper of 140# or higher. How do I know this? I do it, but more, successful artists have been painting with, for instance, tube casein for years on wc paper without any preparation.

It is wise to prime non flexible surfaces in order to avoid cracking later on due to the expansion dilation that some board like surfaces might have in the future.
If you paint on paper you don’t have to prime anything but if you work with heavy impasto then it will be the paint that will crack and not the surface. It becomes so thick and dry that it breaks in other words. Gum Arabic is a resin that doesn’t have any elasticity. In its original dried form is hard as a rock or – to say it better- like Amber ( that is rock dried resin too).

People have been using pastes with and varnishing watercolor and other “offenses” for more than 100 years. The recipes for these pastes that are being sold now are from the 19th century. I recently ran across a recipe for a gel to be used with watercolor that is made from gum tragacanth.

I didn’t talk about any “offenses”. The painting mediums are not persons to offend them by any way.

You can work with watercolors on a black ground if they are light colors. And I don’t mean just stuff with zinc. I just got some pigments that are iridescent to use on dark grounds because I felt like experimenting. They are exactly what is being used in DS iridescent watercolor paints. I got these pigment powders from a cosmetics ingredients supplier, but they originated in, get this, automobile paint. Is DS selling “not real” watercolors because of that fact? Heck no.

You can work on dark background only with iridescent paints ( or with the opaque ones) that glitter when you look at them in an angle. These iridescent paints don’t work that well on white backgrounds btw. This particular product instead of being marketed as an auxiliary primer/gesso for these particular paints, is marketed as a black watercolour ground, misinforming with this label the potential buyers about its use. It doesn’t work with transparent regular watercolours.
The opaque water media like gouache work just fine with or without dark or white gesso. But generally speaking they don’t need it on soft and porous surfaces and they don’t need for sure a black one.

I don’t understand why you want to dictate what watercolor has to be. Maybe consider that other artists want to use watercolor in ways that you are not familiar with. That is allowed. Maybe also learn more about the history of watercolor. People have done all sorts of things with it.

I’m not dictating anything to anyone. I don’t know how you end up to this conclusion. (Perhaps you misunderstand my intentions due to the way I express myself in English. My writing in English is not so refined as it is in Greek. Would you prefer perhaps to write everything in Greek and auto translate them yourself in English online? That would be a nice alternative option and – why to hide it- a very convenient one for me. If you want just tell me to switch in Greek. It is pity to misunderstand my intentions due to my lack of skill in English language.:))

I’m just raising some very reasonable questions about how much are needed the products of this category.

My point is that you use a specific medium because it offers you specific characteristics.

Watercolours are characterized by their transparency and their fluidity. The initial recipe for making watercolours mixed with gum Arabic as a binder was invented for this exact purpose. In order to ensure the transparency and the fluidity of the colours.
People struggle to learn how to express themselves in transparent and fluid paint.

I assume that if someone doesn’t want to deal with these characteristics then it is better to go for a another medium with other characteristics, pigments in other words mixed with another binder, instead of trying hard to transform the inherent characteristics of Gum Arabic into something else.

The pigments after all, are always the same. What differentiate the media are the binders’ properties . So common sense says that if you want opaque and thick results it is better to start with the right binder ( and pigment) instead of start the other way round.

That’s the point of the discussion..
Αυτό είναι το νόημα της όλης συζήτησης.

Watercolours are characterized by their transparency and their fluidity. The initial recipe for making watercolours mixed with gum Arabic as a binder was invented for this exact purpose. In order to ensure the transparency and the fluidity of the colours.
***
So common sense says that if you want opaque and thick results it is better to start with the right binder ( and pigment) instead of start the other way round. :)[/quote]

The idea that watercolor can or must be only transparent is a minority opinion. And it’s an opinion. Not a definition of this medium.

As the next poster mentioned, this paste is transparent in use. So there goes your anti-opaque argument.

Many artists in watercolor incorporate other mediums and still define themselves as watercolorists. There are a number of people on this board who use acrylic white paint and still call themselves watercolorists. Heck, there are people who varnish their works with acrylic or wax, there are people who use shellac or acrylic as isolation coats to paint over, etc. They are all watercolorists.

I have frequently run across the advice that if you want a wash to stay in place, add a drop of acrylic medium to the mix. The first place I ran across this was in one of my favorite watercolor books, “Texture Techniques for Winning Watercolors” by Ray Hendershot. He recommends adding a drop of acrylic medium to prevent lifting and also uses acrylic paint for mist and snow. And he is a pretty traditional watercolorist, specializing in rustic houses and barns. He’s also a member of the American Watercolor Society, the National Watercolor Society, the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society, and the Philadelphia Water Color Society, so I dare say he knows something about watercolor and that he is a watercolorist, not a mixed-media artist.

Historically, lots and lots of watercolorists have incorporated gouache into their paintings. Gouache is opaque. Take a look at the history of watercolor, especially the so-called Golden Age in the UK in the 19th century. Those artists were doing everything in their power to make watercolors look like oils so they could charge more for their paintings. They painted opaquely, they use pastes, they varnished heavily. Why didn’t they “just” use oils? Because they wanted to use watercolors, and there was no pope of watercolor to say they couldn’t. And there still isn’t.

Gum arabic is not at all the only binder that has been used in watercolor. People have used other gums, egg white, and even, according to a reference in an art history book I came across last week, hide glue.

There is no purity in art. Nor should there be. If you don’t like painting with anything but water and gum arabic with transparent pigments on white paper, that’s fine. Do it. But don’t tell other people that what they are doing is not “really” watercolor or hector them about they should use a different medium.

In most of the cases and no matter what auxiliary mediums/binders/gessos/grounds ( call them whatever you like) someone might use, the effects and the results will be incomplete and will not come not even close to the effects and results you can make by using paints that are more suitable for making such effects.

You have no experience whatsoever with these things and no knowledge of their ingredients or their historical use in watercolor, so your judgment about them is not helpful.