Varnishing Colored Pencil - Part 1

 There are times when I like to mount my colored pencil artwork on a cradled panel or present it in a floater frame as opposed to framing the art under glass. In order to do this I need to varnish the finished piece. Up until now I had been varnishing my colored pencil work with water based Golden UVLS Polymer Varnish. I wrote about my experiements with this particular method in a blog post, link here.

 However, Golden has discontinued the Polymer Varnish and replaced it with a new product (also water based) Golden Waterborne Varnish. I thought I could apply the Waterborne varnish the same way as I did the UVLS Polymer Varnish and found out the hard way both products are completely different. So I have decided to do some experimenting with different methods of varnishing my work.

These are the various products I using in my testing.  I first spray my drawing with a coat of Krylon UV Resistant Clear, let it dry for about 15 minutes and gave it another coat. I always spray my colored pencil as an isolation to fix the color so the color won't move or streak when I apply any kind of varnish. 

First experiment: 

I recently watched a video in which the artist is using gel medium as a varnish over watercolor so I decided to try it over colored pencil. I mixed the Golden Regular Gel Semi Gloss diluted with water, equal parts of each. After the second coat of UV Resistant clear was dry, using a 2" wide flat, soft bristle brush I brushed on a layer of the gel medium mixture carefully going in one direction only. As it dried I noticed  streaking and brush marks in some areas no matter how hard I tried to apply evenly (as indicated above). 

So I contacted Golden company and the customer service person suggested the Golden Open Acrylic Gel or Golden Soft Gel are better options for varnishing as they are both softer bodied and lay down smoother. I also found that using a newer soft brush works much better, the older ones either seem to stiffen up with use. There is good information on using Golden gels here.

Second experiment: 

I tried the same application but using the Liquitex Acrylic Gloss Varnish (after fixing my drawing with the UV Resistant Clear spray). The Liquitex varnish seemed to brush on smoother although I still got a few brush marks no matter how hard I tried not to. It is best to apply the gel in one direction and not go over the top again. I like the way the Liquitex looks after it dries, if I can get this method to work I would use this product. 

Third experiment:

 Using the Krylon Kamar Varnish spray as the final varnish. I fixed my drawings first the same way with 2 coats of the Krylon UV Resistant Clear. The two drawings above were then sprayed with 2 coats of the Kamar Varnish, allowing the first layer to dry (at least 30 minutes) before applying the second. As you can see, the Kamar varnish leaves a textured or mottled effect on my drawings that you can particularly see in the white area on the lobster drawing. It isn't so bad on the leaf drawing in which the entire surface is covered. 

In the next post I will write about my experiments with the Golden Gloss Waterborne Varnish. 

If anyone reading this has any feedback or has tried their own experiments, please contact me as I would like to hear about it.