I have a question about rinse water

[Ellen Easton]

I hope nobody thinks this is a stupid question but it's something I've wondered about a lot. I watch videos of watercolor artists a lot and some of the artists I watch have horribly dirty rinse water. One I'm watching right now is a good example. He's using such dirty rinse water that I'm surprised his brush wouldn't stand upright in it. It's so absolutely black that you can't see through it. But he just paints away, and his painting is nice and bright and beautiful. I just don't understand how that awful jet black opaque water doesn't muddy up his colors in the painting. If my rinse water gets even a fair amount of color, it bothers me and I have to dump it and get fresh water that's nice and clear. To combat this, I have two water containers---I rinse my brush in the "dirty" water and then rinse again in "less dirty" water but even so, I'll still go trotting to the sink to refresh both when the water in them starts to get much color to it.

Also, there's one guy whose palette is just absolutely caked with paint till I'm sure he's memorized where the colors are on it. He's added paint on top of paint on top of more paint for years from the looks of it. He always comes up with the colors he's after, so I'm sure he puts the colors always in the same spot every time he adds more paint to the palette.

I'm not criticizing the way they choose to paint, I just don't understand. How does the dirty water and the crusty palette not muddy up the paintings? Does anyone know? I can't bring myself to try it myself yet, but I guess I should.

 

[Bartc]

Working in various water media I am also amazed that dirty water doesn't automatically translate into muddy or neutral colors. But up to a point it doesn't seem to. After a point it does. I find that worse in acrylics than watercolors.

 

[Terri]

I don't work with watercolor, only acrylics - and I'm with you, I prefer to swap out the rinse water after repeated use and it starts to get really dark. I'll definitely rinse several times, but seeing it getting almost opaque is enough for me to dump it. It just seems a good practice.

I don’t see why you should follow this guy's lead if it makes you uncomfortable - how can general cleanliness in the studio be a bad thing?

Unless you have a real need to use water sparingly, you should feel empowered to stick to your own practice in the studio.

Regarding these guys online, I'd be wondering if this casual regard to working clean would translate to the kitchen, bathroom - or anywhere else in the house.

But that's just me. More people who work with watercolor should chime in!

 

[Enyaw]

I read from AI that if you can see the bottom of your container the water is good but once it gets opaque it's trash .. As Terri said, do what works for you .. some people teach without knowing and sometimes the teachers knowing doesn't get translated. I paint acrylic and I swish my brush in water that is weeks old and the brushes come out pretty clean. It's then one rinse in a clear water and I'm done. Actually wash my rubber gloves in the tainted water. That's not cheap .. economical .. had the trought and tried it today .. so tomorrow I use the same gloves .. will be fun to know how long I can get out of a pair.

 

[LizC]

I rarely change the water while I'm painting, if I do it's because I want to rub out something on the watercolor paper or possibly if I want to paint something very lightly and the water just seems too black. I don't change the water while I'm painting with acrylics either.

 

[PaintBoss]

I use 2 large jars for water as Ellen does. One is a large peanut butter container. I do it for the same reason reasons. The first jar can get really dirty but the second one I don’t let it get too dirty. Yes it can definitely stain, especially if using a watercolour that is a staining pigment. Like the reds and sometimes you can’t get it out. Watercolour is unforgiving for white space that you’re trying to preserve. So unless you have masked it, it can cause problems. It’s just really good practice to get into good habits and keep them. Why risk it when you have put a lot of effort into the painting? You don’t want to spend a lot of effort trying to clean up a mess. Which can cause a lot of problems in watercolor.
Oil was fun, keeping the older paint on because it wasn’t dry and you could keep working on it the next day. When I started my first watercolour in high school, I was trying to keep some of my colours because I wasn’t sure how to mix them again. I also kept my brushes in the Varsol. I only did that once! My male art teacher of a certain age, lost his mind on me in front of the class. And told me to start treating my tools better. Brushes are expensive to replace, and they should last years if you take good care of them. He did not like a dirty pallet at all. I tried to tell him why with that one. That was a mistake. But he did teach us to do everything the right way and get into the habit of that. He had us learning how to make our own canvases and stretch them. And we had a lot of fun doing that and stapling the back. But he didn’t want to see sloppy staple work either. It says something about you. And it’ll tell the person who buys the work or even was gifted the work, that maybe you were a little haphazard or uncaring about your painting. That is not a message you want to send. You want it to always look professional. You should show care and everything you do.
Also, in case you ever tipped that jar of water over, you don’t want it to stain everything if it’s watercolor. I haven’t done that. But in high school I was done painting my very first portrait and it looked good, and people were kind of excited about it. I stood up and knocked the dirty jar of Varsol across the painting. Argh! Took another few weeks to finish that painting! That was a complete rework.
Watercolour is the least forgiving as I mentioned. It’s like trying to paint in an area that has not dried, and then you have a bloom of colour in the wrong place. It’s better to slow down and do things properly because in a few moments, you can create more problems than it’s worth, Hard to fix. With acrylics maybe it hides it a little better. But why muddy up your paint? It’s easier to avoid than to fix.

 

[Ellen Easton]

Thanks to everybody. It's good to know I'm not the only one who has wondered. I'll just go with changing to fresh water when I can't see the bottom of the container. I've always been concerned that I'd muddy up something that was going well. For some reason though, in the years when I was using oils, I didn't worry about dirty turpentine or mineral spirits. I think that was because the pigments sank to the bottom of the container and I had a strainer thing in the bottom so it kept my brushes from touching the residue.

I live in Oregon where there's "water, water everywhere". I've visited in Arizona a few times, though, and people down there don't waste a drop of water. I try to keep that in mind with my water usage here now. We have a large creek that runs through this RV park and the river that the creek flows into is right across the highway but sometimes we have droughts and those can last for a few years so I still try to conserve water, although not nearly as diligently as I've done in Arizona or southern California.

 

[Ellen Easton]

I was watching videos last night and I saw the same artist with the black water going out to plein aire and I had to chuckle because when he got all set up and brought out his water container, it already had water in it that was also quite murky. LOL Maybe he finds it adds something to his paintings.

If anyone sees this thread who also uses murky water, please know that I'm not making fun or criticizing.

 

[TK H-H]

I also use two water jars when I paint with acrylic or watercolor. One's my rinsing jar, one's for thinning paint. I just use some large tomato sauce jars that I saved.
When I use oils, I use water-mixables, so I just have one large water jar for rinsing, and a little jar of water-soluble paint thinner.

I've certainly seen people get away with using some pretty dirty looking paint water. Must still be diluted enough to not have too much of an effect, despite how it appears.