Diagnose / Causes / Drying and time
Drying and time mistakes
Waiting, layer order and drying behaviour.
- Cauliflower blooms and backrunsWatercolour. Pale spots with hard, dark, fringed outer contours form inside an existing wash. Rescue
- Colour shifts darker as acrylic driesAcrylic. Freshly applied passages dry to a visibly darker and less saturated value than when mixed on the palette. Rescue
- Hard dry edges where you wanted a soft blendWatercolour. Where a smooth gradient was intended, the colour stops abruptly at an unyielding boundary. Rescue
- Overworking wet paint into mudOil. Paint layers have blended into a cloudy, indistinct paste. Rescue
- Paint drying on the palette before you use itAcrylic. Piles of paint develop a rubbery outer surface and gummy clumps that drag across the support. Rescue
- Painting the next layer before the first is dryWatercolour. Fresh paint introduced onto a damp wash dissolves the settling pigment and pushes it aside. Partly
- Overworking damp paper: lifting, scuffed surfaceWatercolour. Small rolls of paper fibre form across the painted area and the pigment settles unevenly into the torn spots. Partly
- Fat over lean violation leading to cracksOil. Fine cracks, alligatoring, or crawling wrinkles appear across upper paint layers. Partly
Other causes
- ObservationDrawing what you think exists instead of what you see.
- MeasuringProportion, angle and placement errors that checking would catch.
- MaterialsPaper, paint, tools and how they behave.
- CompositionHow shapes sit on the page.
- ColourMixing, temperature and saturation.
- EdgesHard, soft and lost edges.
- FinishingFinal stages, protection and presentation.