Paint turnung gray/separating?

[Crunchysock]

Hopefully someone can tell me what's happening. Most of my paint, even really light colors like bone white seem to turn gray after 10 or 15 minutes on my wet palette. If I mix the paint up again it kind of remixes and turns back to it's original color again then separate again after a few minutes. My paint is all Vallejo, mostly Game Color. It's all 5 or 6 years old, never really used before and was stored in an attic in the bay area for probably 3 years, so it never froze but it did reach over 100 degrees several times. I've used the paper that comes with the masterson wet palette and parchment paper and it still seems to separate and turn gray. Some of the paints, like beastly brown doesn't seem to mix back up correctly. I see little brown pigment dots on my brush and whatever I paint on. When I thin the paint I use 5 or 6 year old Liquitex Flow Aid stored in the same conditions as the paint. My "paint additive" mix is 10% Flow Aid and 90% distilled water mixed very precisely, down to the ml. Is this separating/graying normal? If not could it be caused by the old-abused paint? I'm a noob and in the dark, someone please enlighten me. Oh, I did search for a post on this already but I didn't see anything.

 

[Estragon]

It is a property of Vallejo paints that they tend to separate pretty badly.

 

[10 ball]

Shake the paint really well and don't use any thinners. Does it do it then?

 

[Chris S]

Hello

I use Vallejo game colour for 98% of my painting.

Yes, it is what Vallejo paint does (new or old) with or without it coming into contact with other liquids for thinning, adding water and or
a thinning agent speeds it up. I place a couple of drops of paint on a mixing tray, add some water etc to thin, pick up brush go for some
paint and it has started to separate already.

Most Vallejo paints seem OK to me to use straight from the bottle, they look quite thick, but when painted onto a white primer I find I need to
apply at least a couple of coats to cover it.

I have often wondered about all the paint thinning that people do, surely manufacturers create their paints to be used straight from the bottle ?

 

[Crunchysock]

Thanks for the replies everyone. When I paint tomorrow I'll try everyone's tips and see if I can reduce the separating. I'm happy to find out it's not a case of bad or spoiled paint.

 

[RuneBrush]

Hopefully someone can tell me what's happening. Most of my paint, even really light colors like bone white seem to turn gray after 10 or 15 minutes on my wet palette. If I mix the paint up again it kind of remixes and turns back to it's original color again then separate again after a few minutes.

I find that most acrylics have a tendency to do this, Games Workshop foundation paint more than most and generally when I thin them down with water. What I believe it is, is that the various pigment colours have different weights, so the colour you see on the top is infact the lightest weight pigment and the colour on the bottom is the heaviest weight. If you leave a pot of paint for a while you'll see a similar effect where the pigments settle and the binding agent floats to the top.

As has been said, give your paints a really good shake before you use them and it will reduce the speed at which this happens.

I have often wondered about all the paint thinning that people do, surely manufacturers create their paints to be used straight from the bottle ?

Yes and no. Although it is perfectly acceptable to use paints straight from the pot, thinning them allows painters to use different techniques to create specific effects. Acrylic paint varies in viscosity too and is effected by the batch, age of the paint, storage, heat, etc so no two pots of paint are going to be the same viscosity.

If ever you read any of the old GW 'Eavy Metal Painting Masterclasses or one of the How to Paint guides where they explain techniques you'll find that they instruct you to thin your paint which GW wouldn't print if they didn't want you to thin paints.

 

[TrystanGST]

I find that most acrylics have a tendency to do this, Games Workshop foundation paint more than most and generally when I thin them down with water. What I believe it is, is that the various pigment colours have different weights, so the colour you see on the top is infact the lightest weight pigment and the colour on the bottom is the heaviest weight. If you leave a pot of paint for a while you'll see a similar effect where the pigments settle and the binding agent floats to the top.

As has been said, give your paints a really good shake before you use them and it will reduce the speed at which this happens.

I have to agree with Runebrush. I actually was just musing on this. I've seen it happening with both my GW and P3 paints. Not all, but some.