WHAT TO DO WITH OVERWORKED PAPER

OVERWORKED PAPER SOLUTIONS

The dilemma: You've spent hours on a painting and you're happy with most of it. But an area got overscrubbed. Or something is too dark. Or you spilled coffee on it.

The fix: It's always gut-wrenching to work so hard on something and one little area keeps it from
being perfect. There are a few things you can try before you give up.

In the April 2020 Watercolor Artist Magazine, artist Kathleen S. Giles has a few suggestions.

   1. White paint, Chinese white
   2. White gouache
   3. A watery coat of gesso.

The coat of gesso is the one I'd never tried. You have to water it down, though, or the watercolor will slip and slide on it. You can actually use it as a glaze to just cause the color to calm down or be tinted. Or you can use it on an overscrubbed area so you can paint on it again.

I have also tried something called "watercolor ground." Ground creates a surface that willl accept watercolor. It can be used on a lot of surfaces: wood, ceramic tile, glass, canvas, etc. It comes in black, white, transparent, buff titanium, pearl, and gold. It's one drawback is that it has to be dried (or cured) for 24-48 hours before you can paint on it.

Something to be aware of, whether using ground or gesso, is that the texture resulting from them, may be different from your paper. You can sand it down a bit, or take advantage of the texture change. Since I do a lot of portraits, that's something I have to be aware of on a face. But if it's part of a background, a piece of clothing, a wall of a building, texture change might be interesting.

You can use the ground to paint over something or as a glaze.

Suppose something got onto your white background and caused a stain that can't be lifted. You can use an opaque white paint, toned a little to match the shade of white of your paper. I have used FLUID ACRYLIC white. I have to be careful that the sheen on the paint I use to cover the stain isn't different from the rest of the painting, especially if it will be photographed. (the lens will show the difference)

My problem with gouache (and Chinese white) in general is that it looks chalky when you try to paint over it. As a final touch, I use it when needed, but I don't paint over it. Others may have that problem licked, but I haven't figured it out. For small bits of white, I use either a gel pen or permanent white ink pen. 

But this article was very interesting and worth some experimenting.