What % of gloss : matte : water in glamour II coating

[Rocco Penny]

I'm after a nice satiny not matte finish.
I don't want glossy of course, and would like to have the texture of the canvas show through.
So I'm going to further experiment with my coating and canvas and would like to retain as many as possible.
So any tips for proportions?
Hey tia,
Rocco

[neile]

I'm after a nice satiny not matte finish.
I don't want glossy of course, and would like to have the texture of the canvas show through.
So I'm going to further experiment with my coating and canvas and would like to retain as many as possible.
So any tips for proportions?
Hey tia,
Rocco

The Breathing Color folks have recommended ratios in their "how to" video on their website. It think for satin they say 25% glossy/75% matte.

Neil

[bill t.]

The Breathing Color folks have recommended ratios in their "how to" video on their website. It think for satin they say 25% glossy/75% matte.

Neil

GlamourII gloss is rather Satin-like even at 100% dilution, I would try that first.  You can get a wide variation in surfaces just by how it is applied.  For instance many very-thin, rather dry coats will give a distinctly matte finish.  I think the mechanism is that the thin coats retain the fine texture of the canvas which is inherently matte.   2 or 3 heavy, wet coats will be fairly glossy and even cover up the canvas texture.  Other interesting textures are available by spraying heavy coats with the canvas dead vertical which gives an arty-looking low frequency texture from partial sagging.

Keep in mind that the GII Matte tends to precipitate the matte component fairly quickly to the bottom of the container, you need to stir your mixed solution fairly often.

[Wayne Fox]

I second the opinion that "gloss" isn't that glossy.  Try it first.

http://www.breathingcolor.com/bc/catalog/i...ctions_0908.pdf

[Rocco Penny]

yes, I overlooked that pdf, I'll look harder for instructions from now on, thank you.
I'm sure of how flat and gloss paint mix together sometimes rendering nothing like satin.
I have added flattener to gloss, but never the other way around, gloss from flat.
So I'm after the magic number that really works here. Trial and error lead me to spraying the matte @ 50% dilution or so, so about 2:1 with warm water.
I'm using the correct methodology I think, that is,
spray 1 seal coat, medium to light for keying, then after 20 or so, 1 nice 4 pass omnidirectional application using around 50?psi and less material than more discharging through a .017 tip in a 2 or so inch fan spray pattern @ 12 inches yonder to eventually build a three coat layer over 24 hours that is Xmm thick.
Here in this example what does x equal?
1 key coat+3 build coats=Xmm thick?
I'm randomly guessing I leave  <mm in a thick enough coat?
I wonder what that number is
OK well heck,
your gracious help has given me more than a charge of respect on your terms,
thank you

[bill t.]

Wow, the new .pdf and coating video on Breathing Color are huge improvements over the old ones, which IMHO were doing a lot more harm than good.  The new ones show a much wider roller, pouring the paint onto the print rather than transferring with the roller, and spreading a very thick, wet coating in all directions.  Good stuff and hats off to BC!  

Don't know what kind of spray gun you are using, but my best results are from 2 very thick HVLP coats that put about 300ml per pass on a 4x8 foot sheet, with the sheet tilted back about 15 degrees from vertical.  The sheet is a piece of foamcore with prints taped to it.  That's a lotta paint, but the results are terrific with a very satiny look after two passes with canvas texture still visible, or glossy after three passes with most of the texture smoothed out.  Very important to keep just the right speed to avoid runs, takes practice.

Have been forced to roll a few canvases indoors because of sub-freezing days, nowhere near as nice as the sprayed canvases.

My caliper says an uncoated Fredrix 777 canvas is about 0.42 mm thick, and about 0.57 mm with two thick coats.  A lot of the paint goes into the canvas and into the valleys between the weave peaks so it's completely different than painting a smooth surface.  That hill & valley variation in paint thickness is partly what gives the gloss paint a satin texture.

[Wayne Fox]

I have added flattener to gloss, but never the other way around, gloss from flat.
So I'm after the magic number that really works here. Trial and error lead me to spraying the matte @ 50% dilution or so, so about 2:1 with warm water.

That's how the Glamour II works.  You add the matt(flattener) to the Gloss.  The matt is not intended to be used by itself. Once you mix the right ratio of gloss/matt,  you then mix with warm water per the instructions in that ratio.

Personally I've never used the matt, in fact I'd like to find something that gives me a little more gloss sometimes.  So either the matt isn't very strong or the 50/50 mix of gloss to matt you mentioned will leave you with a pretty flat looking print. We do a ton of canvas portraits and we felt the straight "gloss" was perfect.  It isn't anywhere close to actual gloss.

Bill Atkinson does a lot of BC canvas as well, and he recommends less water dilution when spraying, but then he warms the entire solution up to 97 degrees using an aquarium heater in a water bath.  He says this allows a very thick coat  (very wet looking) without running.  Like most of us he finds 2 coats this way is enough.

The key is getting the first coat on as wet as possible without running.  If you don't some of the resulting unfilled textures can be difficult to cover even with additional coats.

I agree with Bill in the previous post, the new video has helped me as well.  I roll mine on, and using the wider roller (from Home Depot) and pouring the mixture on the print is giving me much better results.

[Christopher Sanderson]

There is a fairly detailed demo and discussion of this in the Andrew Collett video in LLJV-19

[neile]

There is a fairly detailed demo and discussion of this in the Andrew Collett video in LLJV-19

Woah, wait, when did that go live? Thanks Chris!

[namartinnz]

Just adding to what the other guys have said , I normally do a 50/50 mix of matt & gloss, all my photographers and artists seem to prefer this than a more glossy finish. However, one time I did mistakenly coat a couple of wedding prints for a private customer with 100% gloss. The end result looked more shiny than I wanted but still looked great and they were really happy. Everyone's tastes are different I suppose.

[Wayne Fox]

There is a fairly detailed demo and discussion of this in the Andrew Collett video in LLJV-19

I enjoyed that video.  Nicely done.

[bill t.]

I enjoyed that video.  Nicely done.

Yeah, very interesting.  I'm in almost exactly the same type of situation, except in a warmer climate!  And I don't do workshops, couldn't deal with that.

That reminded me how the mounting method affects the apparent glossiness of the print.  My glue-mounted canvases look far less glossy than the exact same canvases when stretched.  The inherent bumps and ripples and other surface issues in even drum-tight stretched canvases pick up reflections and specular highlights much more than a truly flat canvas that is glued or drymounted.  The more planar the canvas, the less glossy it looks.