Home › Forums › Explore Media › Watercolor › The Learning Zone › What to do when you accidentally nick the sizing?
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May 7, 2019 at 2:55 pm #472952
Hey all,
I have a new painting I’m working on of a dragonfly. After I had it all drawn and was doing early washes, I accidentally had a couple small flecks of paint hit my paper while mixing colors. Two of these tiny (dark) droplets hit the clear area of my dragonfly wings. So what did I do? I took a small brush with clean water and gently brushed the flecks to try and lift them, but the paint had some staining pigment and they didn’t come all the way up. I can live with it though. BUT…when I went to do some light washes later on over these areas, to my horror, the watercolor poured through breaks in the sizing and spread under it into the surrounding area. It looks a bit better when it’s completely dry, but it also looks like two “blemishes” on the wings. Ugh! This sucks! I have learned my lesson with this 6×9 Bee Paper.
So what do folks do when this happens?
It makes it so difficult to later paint in these areas. This piece looks so nice, but “ARRRGH!” just like my previous pieces, another imperfection. One of these days……May 7, 2019 at 3:58 pm #825271High quality papers have internal sizing to avoid this problem. But naybe you could try resizing those spots. I have some methyl cellulose but I haven’t tried it yet.
May 7, 2019 at 4:07 pm #825268Have you tried watercolor ground in small areas?
Sling paint,
VirgilSling paint,
Virgil Carter
http://www.virgilcarterfineart.com/May 7, 2019 at 6:27 pm #825274I never paint without tissue handy. If a get a drop or a drip etc, I quickly dab it with a tissue and for the most part it gets it ,, maybe not on the delicate wings of a dragonfly (sounds like Kung Fu ), but for the most part I just work the stain into the picture
Kaylen Savoie
https://www.savoieartist.com/
At least twice a year,paint something better than you ever painted before.May 7, 2019 at 6:47 pm #825277I was so busy mixing I didn’t see the flecks until they had dried. Virgil, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
May 7, 2019 at 8:34 pm #825275Virgil is referring to “watercolor ground” its a liquid that can be spread or brushed onto various surfaces and that surface will then behave somewhat like watercolor paper,,,,I have only barly experimented with it , most people seem not to be satisfied with results,,,it can be a sort of “white out”, for watercolorpaper
Kaylen Savoie
https://www.savoieartist.com/
At least twice a year,paint something better than you ever painted before.May 7, 2019 at 8:46 pm #825278Hmmm…I might try very thin washes of white gouache.
May 8, 2019 at 3:36 am #825273There are species of dragonfly that have dots/spots on their wings, could you adapt.
May 8, 2019 at 8:59 am #825269What Donald said. Watercolor ground is a gesso like paste which can be applied to almost any surface, and, after allowing 24 hours to completely dry, can be used for applying watercolor. Ground is manufactured by a variety of manufacturers and comes in a variety of colors and consistencies.
Painting with watercolor on ground is not like painting on watercolor paper. The paint behaves differently and tends to look like tints. I don’t like the stuff and don’t use it, but in your case with just a few small dots to cover, it might be perfect for your situation.
Sling paint,
VirgilSling paint,
Virgil Carter
http://www.virgilcarterfineart.com/May 8, 2019 at 1:03 pm #825267Honestly, I have learned NOT to try and fix things. A mistake such as yours will definitely change the direction of my painting, but I go with it rather than trying to lift and scrub.
However, you can work with white gouache to help this problem along. Paint it on fairly saturated and let it dry completely. Then, with a clean cloth, tissue or paper towel, wet it down and begin to remove the gouache. Some of it will ultimately remain. You won’t get subsequent washes to paint the way you’d like, again, but it will minimize the appearance of damage to your paper.
Char --
CharMing Art -- "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci
May 8, 2019 at 10:51 pm #825270I’ve had some luck burnishing the paper where I did the lifting with the back of a spoon. It compresses it back down so it absorbs paint more normally.
Jan
May 8, 2019 at 11:07 pm #825281not all dragonfly wings are transparent.. they have color from transparent, brown, red, red-brown, blue-green and black..
they also not always crystal clear as some have pattern on their wings.. so the paint staining could be easily fix by just changing the wings color and pattern..
May 9, 2019 at 9:47 am #825272I do many corrections during my painting process and have found Bee paper not to be suitable.
Thank you.
- Tesh Parekh
May 9, 2019 at 7:22 pm #825279I’m okay with this Bee Paper, but I am discovering it’s weaknesses. It doesn’t like lifting stains. Ah well, live and learn. And I’ve decided to live with my mistake. It gets buried in the business of the wing veins. I’m almost finished painting this. I’ll post a link to a gallery page when I’m done.
May 10, 2019 at 3:36 pm #825276I know what you mean, I’m curious myself of what the Bee paper is really made of as it does not behave like any other real watercolor paper I’ve tried- and I tried practically all of them. The fragile soapy coating is more akin to pulp papers.
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