Painting 33

Ref 893; Watercolor---Adding Gum Arabic to your water

Adding Gum Arabic to your water color has three effects: it slows down the drying time of the paint, giving you slightly longer to work on creating your image or working wet into wet; it adds further transparency to your water colors and it increases gloss. Gum Arabic washes will have greater depth and appear more luminous than color washes alone. Gum Arabic is usually mixed into the water color wash but can be added to the jar of water if you prefer to use it throughout the painting. Gum Arabic should not be used directly from the bottle because thick films will be brittle