Making RCW Primary Water Colors

I'M MAKING A PRIMARY W/C PALETTE STARTING WITH A TRANSPARENT PERMANENT WATER COLOR MEDIUM MADE OF GUM, SOAP AND HONEY.

4-27-10, 6 gum Arabic Daniel Smith solution, 1 OEM Magenta PR:122 Cannon ink. This filled one of seven wells in the porcelain palette. The porcelain palette holds about three times more paint as the plastic palettes. My cost, Plastic palette = $1.00 each. Porcelain palettes = $14.00 each. Gum Arabic Daniel Smith solution. 16 oz. = $25.00 delivered.

This formula was dry during the next day, the volume was down 50%. It re-wets and paints well. Magenta was easy to make.

These three primary colors dry as fast as water, be transparent and not sticky to the touch, re-wet and pick up full color load easily. The paint should dry matte on watercolor paper.

The binder is gum arabic, made from the solidified sap of thorny, shrubby acacia trees, species Acacia arabica or Acacia senegal. Sap from the cherry tree was used first and popular in Cinnini's time.
Gum arabic can be buffered with a carbohydrate plasticizer GLYCERIN $17.00= 16oz. This is the trihydroxy form of alcohol. This substance is necessary to retain water or act as a humectant for opaque colors. Other humidifiers are also carbohydrate moisteners, either a sugar syrup, corn syrup or honey. Honey is more effective than corn syrup at retaining water, glycerin has a drying problem.

Make a Gum Arabic Solution from crystals.
Place 1 part gum arabic powder or crystals. Heat 2 parts distilled water to a boil, remove from heat, and slowly pour over gum arabic, stirring to mix. Do not cook it. Cover it with cheesecloth and let it stand until tomorrow, stirring occasionally. Strain the solution through several layers of cheesecloth to remove impurities and sediment.

Dextrin (STARCH, wheat or corn starch) can be used as a cheap extender to add bulk to opaque colors. China clay and calcium carbonate are also opaque extenders.

I don't need a humectant for magenta or cyan. I use honey in yellow which I have to make from scratch.

Gum Aribic- high gloss, no stick, is not a glue, pure it will not stick to a plastic well, shrinkage will break it's bond.

Soap, dispersant, reduces gloss but does not make it matte, semi-gloss, allows pigment settling, soap reduces the glue factor.

Honey, humectant, is high gloss, almost never dries so it sticks and keeps some moisture, 2honey 2soap = matte, 1honey 1soap = matte (it takes 5gum to semigloss)

Sugar crystalizes and pits the cake's surface, A poor choice.

Ethylene Glycol is matte even at 1%, dries pigment cakes quickly in PY100, I use it in my plotters ink, same pigments.

Ox gall, dispersant, cake is flat matte. Very powerful. Liquid soap works fine but I don't need either for the colors I'm making. Maybe just a touch to make them very compatible with each other. Buying the pigments wet saves adding a dispersant.

If paint remains sticky or gummy after it dries on the glass it contains too much honey, humectant.
Paint that shoots wildly wet in wet contains too much soap or sugar dispersant, honey is better all around and will do both.

Transparent Clear Yellow, 15 gum, 4 PY:100 Spectra Color Tartrazine, 4 honey
Transparent Clear Magenta, 6 gum, 6 OEM Cannon Ink-jet ink
Transparent Clear Cyan, 5 gum, 5 PB:15 Spectra or ink-jet ink, 1 honey

ShinHan Opera in the tube cannot replace pure PR122, it won't make the darker values. Opera with PR122+RV10 will make even brighter reds and blues but it dulls a little after 6 months in sunlight but not as much as alizarin crimson, which was the magenta before losing a major battle in the PAINT WARS to quinacridone. Now quinacridone has an additive. Holbine makes a slightly denser and darker pigmented Opera that was not effected by sunlight.