How To Resin Watercolor

1. Complete your Watercolour Painting

Complete your watercolour painting on paper sized to fit your panel. 
Trace as we did, using transfer paper, or draw your outline freehand onto the paper.

If you choose, you can apply masking fluid to block out any areas you don't want painted. Masking fluid is easily removed after your paint has dried with an eraser, or by peeling it off.





Paint your image as you wish using watercolor paints.
Allow your painting to dry thoroughly.





Once dry, mount your artwork onto your wood panel using adhesive - you can use either a spray adhesive, a glue stick or a brush on adhesive.  
For best results, smooth the drawing out with your hands or a brayer to ensure that it's evenly mounted to the panel, with no air pockets.

Seal your work using a spray sealant designated safe for watercolors, allowing it to dry completely.

A Note On Sealing:

We always recommend testing your particular materials out with ArtResin on a scrap piece so you know exactly what to expect before you resin your final project.  There are certain cases, however, when sealing your work prior to resining is required ....

• Sealing to prevent absorption:  It's a good precaution to pre-seal when applying ArtResin over soft or low quality paper that may otherwise absorb the resin, causing dark, wet spots in your work or causing your work to bleed.
  
  
• Sealing over loose material.  With a medium like chalk pastel or charcoal, or when resining over a loose material like glitter, you want to be mindful of loose particles that might get mixed up and float away in your liquid resin. For peace of mind, you can certainly err on the side of caution and seal your artwork first - use a spray fixative rather than a brush on sealant.  
  
  
• Sealing to prevent bubbles: Being an organic material, wood and paper may contain trapped air which can release into your resin as bubbles. There are many variables that can affect gas bubbles: with wood, the type of wood, how dry the wood is, and humidity can all affect how much air the wood contains. With paper, soft paper and paper that has been layered into a collage can contain trapped air.  Pre-sealing with a spray or brush-on sealant is an option to help to prevent bubbles. 
  As far as our wood panels, we've used them enough to know that we don't need to pre-seal them, but we always recommend testing with your particular materials so you know exactly what results to expect before you resin your final project. Again, if in doubt, you can never go wrong by pre-sealing first if it makes you feel more comfortable.    

2. Calculate how much Resin you need

Using our Resin Calculator, simply enter the length and width of your piece to determine how much ArtResin you’ll need.