Hi all,
I recently varnished two paintings I completed that were in acrylic. One was in Golden OPEN which I had left to dry for several weeks and with using undiluted Gamvar Gloss it varnished beautifully with no issues.
The other painting was done with Amsterdam Standard and Liquitex Basics Acrylics (So not craft art products) that I left to dry for 2-3 weeks. But to my surprise I found that I had beading in some areas as I would with oil paints. I scrubbed with the brush to reduce the surface tension until the varnish applied properly (or mostly).
Still, I was surprised as I’ve not had this happen with acrylics before and I assumed that the relatively open surface (compared to oils) meant that beading couldn’t occur.
Have you had this experience before when conserving acrylic paints? Is there anything you recommend I could do in the future to avoid this? It was interestingly how the other painting was completely fine though. Would it be the difference in the resins between the different companies products that contributed to this? If so, then perhaps an isolation coat with GOLDEN mediums (following their guidance) would resolve this?
Just interested in your thoughts..
Thanks,
Richard Phipps
Thank you Mirjam, that’s very useful. I will try that next time!
Hello Richard,
The beading up of solvents could have been caused by surfactants from the acrylic films, which have migrated to the surface. This can happen with any waterborne acrylic paints. The more time between finishing an acrylic painting and varnishing, the more surfactants can migrated to the surface. Their migration is exacerbated by changes in temperatures and humidity, e.g. when turning the heating off at night in your studio. A very simple solution is to clean the paintings surface with a damp lint-free cloth, before varnishing. Surfactants are a necessary ingredient in the wet acrylic paints, but once the paint films have dried they are redundant. Before cleaning a whole painting, make sure to test the various sections of the painting for water sensitivity.
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