fixing cheap crumbling watercolour paint pans with honey

The theory: honey fixes everything.

Honey is used in watercolours to make the paint flow smoothly, to stop it from drying out, and to somethingsomething I forgot.

The cheap amazonbasic watercolour paints I'm learning to paint with are drying out too much in the pallet, and yesterday one fell out of the pan.  

My idea: I put a drop of honey in the pan to glue the paint back in place. Now when I use the paint, it flows much nicer on the paper and I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think it's easier to remoist.  It seems to fix two problems but needs further testing.



My new idea: most of my amazonbasic paints I've put in pans are cracking more and more with every use.  What if, I dilute some honey, maybe 50/50, and put a couple of drops in each crack.  Let it dry overnight...

Can this be enough to reduce the paints drying and falling out of the pallet?  Could it really be that simple?



Does anyone want to help me set up the parameters of this experiment?  

I got the idea from this video where she mixes honey and other stuff with problematic paint before filling the pan.  



Something to try for the future, but for now, my paints are already dry in the pan so I need a stop-gap solution.  

Absolutely fascinating experiment you've got going on here! The idea of honey being a magical solution in watercolor painting is something I've never considered before, but your results sound quite promising.

It's remarkable how you've ingeniously used honey to address the issues you were facing with your cheap Amazonbasic watercolors. The concept of using honey to keep the paint from drying out too quickly and falling out of the pan is truly creative. Not to mention, the fact that it's improving the flow of paint on paper is a fantastic bonus.

Your new idea of diluting honey and using it to mend the cracks in your paint pans is intriguing. The notion of honey acting as a binding agent to prevent further cracking is innovative. If it indeed reduces the drying issue and holds the paint together, it could be a game-changer for many artists who face similar problems with their paints.

Of course, as you rightly mentioned, further testing is needed to validate the effectiveness and longevity of these honey-based solutions. But the simplicity of the idea is what makes it all the more appealing. Sometimes, the most ingenious solutions are the simplest ones.

I think honey acts as a mild emulsifier, too. So it should help mix any fats  in the paint with the water. I'm not sure if there's any fats/lipids in it, but if there were, it'd probably help.

I learned about honey as an emulsifier when it comes to making vinaigrettes, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't just passing along hearsay that might not be accurate.

Functional Properties of Emulsified Honey–Vegetable Oil Mixtures

Herein, we show that natural honey is immiscible with vegetable oils at ambient temperature, making them suitable candidates for emulsification. When emulsified with colloidal particles like precipitated CaCO3 (Socal R1E FG, Calofort U and Calofort SV), the mixtures gave stable vegetable oil-in-honey emulsions.

...
For instance, because honey is naturally sweet, these emulsions can be used in the formulation of novel food products without adding sweeteners. Furthermore, the emulsions can be used as bread, biscuit, or cracker spread, that is, as a substitute for margarine that has an appreciable fat content. In addition, these emulsions can be used for microencapsulation of water-labile food and pharmaceutically active ingredients.

(Calcium carbonate is the same calcium as in limestone and eggshells)

I'm not very good at reading this kind of scientific paper, but it does seem to say that honey and oil mix well. Honey also mixes well with water. So it should help both be better friends. I'm not sure what kind of pigment is in the Amazonbasics water colors (not sure if they'd tell us), but some might not be terribly water soluble, but might be more soluble with honey, and so it should therefore give a better application to the paper.

I'm also wondering if the honey making the paint thicker will allow more pigment to apply with each stroke, giving a richer color. When I make milkpaint by adding pigment, it's often very watery/thin and so not much pigment applies with each stroke. But if it were a thicker paint, it'd have better application. Honey is thicker/more viscous that water, so I can see why it'd help!

Reading your first post again, it seems that the problem seems to be the paint pigment not sticking to itself and to the paint tray? This is watercolor paint in trays (like kids use in school), rather than watercolor paint that comes out of tubes, right?

It seems like there's nothing really holding the pigment together in a "cake" (I think that's the right word?). Honey is sticky, and seems to help hold fats together, so it might also help keep the pigment together.

Maybe try your experiment on just one (the most fragile) of the water colors. The chemical make-up of that particular pigment might just not be as "sticky" as the other pigments, and so its more prone to crumbling and falling apart. Adding the honey probably wouldn't hurt (though I would worry about it molding. I've found that honey when diluted with water or other foods does mold. But pigment doesn't usually mold, so maybe it won't be a problem?)

Painting from tube paint is great in a studio setting,  but it looks like most watercolor is done with dry paint now.  Especially on location and nature journaling.   We can buy the paint pre dried,  but it's more economical to buy in tubes and fill the pans ourselves.  It also means we can diy our own portable paint palettes.



Usually it dries smooth and easy to rewet.  Some brands have too much honey and don't dry enough for this to work.   Other brands,  like the one I'm struggling with,  have too much filler and crack and fall out of the pan.

I grew up around painters and artists and none of them would ever paint with dry watercolours.  Watercolour cakes (as they called them) were for kids (as were watercolours because it was too 'easy' a medium).  Those who did paint with watercolours always made a point of painting from tubes.

And yet, dry watercolours have huge advantages.

-They are quick to set up - open tin, apply a damp paintbrush.
-Clean-up is almost as easy.  shake off any puddles and close tin.
-We can take them anywhere and discretely paint on the go.
-They are lighter to travel with than tube paints because of less water and less paint.
-We don't have to worry about them going dry in the tube - they go dry where we want them and stay good for as long as we need them (lots of videos of people painting with 100-year-old pan watercolours whereas my amazonbasics set says it last 3 years from opening if left in the tube.
- watercolour paints are way cheaper in tubes even taking into account the loss of water when we put them in pans to dry.

Now that we have permission for adults to do kid things (like play video games, watch cartoons, and use pencil crayons in colouring books - things that would have been totally unacceptable for adults when I was growing up) it looks like buying tube paint and putting it in a palette to work with dry is the main trend - both hobbyists and professional artists.  I can see why as it's so much easier to control the pigment-to-water ratio.


For me the big thing is I want to take the watercolour paints with me.  I've got a tiny palette, notebook, and waterbrush to keep in my handbag at all times.  As for around the farm, I want to use painting as journaling rather than to make real paintings for hanging on the wall.  Just to put art making into my day.  

Some things happened and it looks like I'll be able to upgrade to student-grade paints sooner than I planned.  So these subpar paints won't hold as much interest for me.  But I would still like to do some experiments and maybe some colour mixing with the remaining paints.  Since I would be mixing colours before putting them into the pans, I would also be able to add honey at that time.  But how to use up the paints that are already dry?  That's a quandary.  

Nicole Alderman wrote:Reading your first post again, it seems that the problem seems to be the paint pigment not sticking to itself and to the paint tray? This is watercolor paint in trays (like kids use in school), rather than watercolor paint that comes out of tubes, right?

It seems like there's nothing really holding the pigment together in a "cake" (I think that's the right word?). Honey is sticky, and seems to help hold fats together, so it might also help keep the pigment together.

Maybe try your experiment on just one (the most fragile) of the water colors. The chemical make-up of that particular pigment might just not be as "sticky" as the other pigments, and so its more prone to crumbling and falling apart. Adding the honey probably wouldn't hurt (though I would worry about it molding. I've found that honey when diluted with water or other foods does mold. But pigment doesn't usually mold, so maybe it won't be a problem?)

The main thing that makes the watercolour stick to the paper is gum arabic.  The pigment brushes off the paper if there isn't enough of that.

Too much honey would attract moisture from the air which prevents it from drying out - thus making a nice environment for mildew and mould.  That's the big concern - how much is too much?  So far the ones I used honey to glue back in don't seem to attract moisture and I used a fair amount of honey to get it back in.  


I think whatever they used as the binder isn't stretchy enough.  Or too much chalk which isn't stretchy... going to see if I can find the chemical safety sheet thingy for it.  

a ha!
44% calcium carbonate.  Most student grade and above watercolour paints would have zero chalk in them.

https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wc-prod-pim/Asset_Documents/Kadink%20Watercolour%20Paint%20Palette%20SDS.pdf

A higher grade paint would look more like this https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2020/09/25/making-handmade-watercolours-with-jacksons-artist-pigments/

Gum Arabic Solution
Gum Arabic is a watersoluble gum which is extracted from the acacia tree, and it acts as the glue that binds the pigment. Some artists make their own by dissolving gum Arabic pieces in distilled water, but we also stock gum Arabic solution which is ready to use.


Honey
Honey is an ingredient in many ranges of watercolour, including our own Jackson’s Artist Watercolours. It is a humectant which helps the paint retain moisture and re-wet after drying. Honey is also a natural preservative and a plasticiser, meaning that it increases the flexibility of gum Arabic (a naturally brittle binder) and prevent cracking in the pan after drying. Runny honey is best, rather than the harder variety.


Glycerin
Like honey, glycerin is a humectant and a plasticiser which can be bought at a pharmacy (it is a common ingredient in skincare products). I used both honey and glycerin in my binder because I find too much honey to be very sticky, but either glycerin or honey would work on its own.


Clove Oil
A natural antibacterial and antifungal agent, clove oil (usually sold as clove essential oil) is an excellent preservative which stops the paint going mouldy.


Dry Pigment
Our new range of Artist Pigments consists of 100 colours, all of which are suitable for making handmade watercolours. 10g is enough to make around 1-2 full pans of watercolour (depending on the pigment), so it is an ideal size if you are trying out a new colour. For larger volumes of paint, they are also available in pots of 100g.

So it looks like I would need more honey, glycerin, or a mix to make this work.  

An experiment would be to try some pre-mixed watercolour binder and some honey to see which gives the most desired results.

Several brands of quality watercolors use honey as part of their formulation, though that might be only tube paints, not cake paints, I don't know.
I have heard there's a watercolor manufacturer in New England somewhere that uses maple syrup, but I haven't been able to verify that.

This one is using artiza which is similar to the amazon brand I have.  

My mind went immediately to my paper mache projects. The sculptures are difficult to store because of molds that can take hold. Honey!!! In the slurry & in the paints. New experiment starting over here. I'm totally embracing this, I'll show results.
Thanks,
Roxanne

Here is an interesting conversation on the problems of brands that use too much honey it their watercolour paints.  

https://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/topic/m-graham-won-t-harden-for-watercolor-travel-kit/

I've been going down a similar rabbit hole recently. I'm part of a forest school co-op, and I led the kids in making milk paint two weeks ago, and this week, I led them through natural dying.

One thing became apparent through this: dyes come from organic sources (plants and animals) and pigments come from inorganic ones (minerals like dirt and charcoal). This got us wondering WHY are the dyes from organic stuffs, and the pigments from inorganic?

Apparently, this all comes down to water solubility. (from LaurenSauder.com)

They differ from one another because natural dyes are colored pigments that can dissolve in a liquid and adhere to a surface by chemically bonding with it. Earth pigments are insoluble in water and adhere to a surface through the use of a binder
....
By definition, earth pigments are insoluble in water and are physically and chemically unaffected by the mediums they mix with. Earth pigments come from naturally occurring minerals, typically iron oxide or manganese oxide. Through the process of grinding, geological material can become a pigment powder

This answered one question, but rose another: how do water colors work, if the pigments aren't water soluble? And, the answer is: Gum arabic! This is the sticky stuff that the pigment is suspended in, and since it is an emulsifier, it allows the pigment to be suspended in water (wikipedia article on gum arabic):

Gum arabic is used as a binder for watercolor painting because it dissolves easily in water. Pigment of any color is suspended within the acacia gum in varying amounts, resulting in watercolor paint.  

You probably knew all of this, but it was all news to me, so I thought I'd share it in case others were wondering too.

This makes me wonder if the pigment is cracking and crumbling, even with the addition of honey, maybe it could be that Amazon paints just didn't use enough gum arabic to bind the pigment together?

Did the honey do the trick? If not, maybe it'd be fun to experiment with adding a bit more gum arabic (though that seems a bit more difficult to source than honey, which most of us have in our cupboards!)

(A bit off topic, but it might come in handy for someone making their own paint, or wanting to know more about the process that goes into making watercolors, here's a tutorial on how to make your own watercolor paint with pigments, gum arabic, and honey: EarthPigments.com instructions on how to make your own watercolor paints)

My first experiment had too much honey and won't dry.

I mixed it in with the tube paint when putting it in the pan to dry.  

I think that the filler in the amazon paint is a big part of the problem.

One of the things I found really interesting in my reading is how we can transform organic dyes into paintable pigments by binding the colour to a salt.  These are often called 'lake' pigments and can be very pretty but aren't always light fast - or at least not lightfast for more than a few years.  Not a problem if we are painting in a book or making a digital copy of our art.  But a problem if we plan to become famous artists after our death - so it's a problem for someone else and I think it's going to be fun to play with these colours.  

More about making paint from plants here: https://permies.com/t/221608/art/Making-paint-plants

Using honey to 'glue' the crumbling paint back in place has been a great success.

Mixing honey with the paint before it dries has either resulted in a diluted sticky paint that won't dry properly or no noticeable difference.  


If I was to continue the experiment further, I would try some watercolour medium.  But I think I'm done with this for now as it's way less frustrating to use the paints that behave nicely.  I might try buying the troublesome colours already in pans in the future.