Binder splitting from dried watercolour

Greetings! I thought I’d share something I’ve noticed about certain watercolours today, since it’s just happened again on my palette. That is the binder splitting away from the dried paint and running away on its own.

Paint not drying vs binder splitting on the palette

A commonly talked about problem with watercolours is paint not setting fully when left to dry. This typically happens with paints made with honey, and is a problem for those living in hot humid environments. You’ll hear of this happening with brands such as M Graham and Sennelier, since they both use honey. It can get rather messy very quickly. If you don’t prepare for it, that palette you left in your bag overnight may be decorated with runaway paints.

The binder separating away from paint on a palette is it’s own quirk to watch out for though, and seems to be far less common. At least from conversations I’ve had with other watercolourist friends. Tubes of paint will sometimes have binder that has separated from the paint, and you can mix it back in by stirring or massaging the tube. On the palette though, it’s a little more annoying.

Terra Rosa by M Graham on my watercolour palette, with a droplet of runaway paint binder.

Above is my watercolour palette — please ignore the cat hair, I have two cats and it gets everywhere — and in the middle is Terra Rosa by M Graham. I live in an environment where honey-based paints dry just enough so that they don’t move around, but they feel tacky to the touch and will leave residue on your finger. The paint itself doesn’t run away for me, but as you can see there is a runaway droplet. If you look closely the droplet is a translucent amber colour, and it’s “carrying” a little bit of pigment with it. That’s the binder deciding to go on an adventure overnight. Thankfully I caught this before it left the paint well, otherwise it would have been more of a pain to clean.

The fun part about this happening is that it has always been completely random when it will happen. This is the first time Terra Rosa has ever done this for me. I’ve had Quinacridone Rose do it on one palette but not another. If I don’t catch it quickly enough it gets everywhere. When it happened on my travel palette once the sticky binder even ended up underneath the pans and I had to do a deep clean. The stickiness of it and its close proximity to set-but-not-completely-dry paint is not an exciting combination for cleaning, believe me.

My solution?

Notice which paints do it and keep an eye on them in the future. Since this is the first time Terra Rosa has done it, it’s been added to the naughty list.

So far it has always been honey-based paints, but not all honey-based paints do it. Plus as I mentioned before, even if a paint does it once it may not do it again.

I could remove them from the palette, but that isn’t always a practical solution either. When it comes around to restocking a paint though, it plays a part in my decision on whether to switch to another brand. Especially for the more common and frequently used pigments like Quinacridone Rose. I weigh up the benefits of the offending paint over picking another. For example, Sennelier’s Ultramarine Deep can do this sometimes but I still keep it around due to its subtle granulation. I like having the option for softer textures alongside the dramatic granulation of French Ultramarine from Schmincke.

I could only use them fresh from the tube, but I don’t typically paint that way. Knowing me, I wouldn’t end up painting with them half the time if I left them to the mercy of my paint tube storage box.

The best solution for me is to watch for it happening and keep an eye on paints that do it.

Since this has never happened to even some of my most prolific palette-collecting friends, I hope that you too can escape this fate. Goodbye for now, and happy creating.