Varnish beading up in places, on acrylic?

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

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