As is well known, anyone who paints with acrylic paints needs water to dilute the paints.



The hardness of the water makes a very important difference! "Hard" water contains a lot of lime, "soft" water little.

And the "softer" the water is, the better it is suitable for painting! Because a lot of lime in the water can leave unwanted white streaks on the painted figure after drying!

To check the water hardness in your region there is a very simple trick!

If you can do this ...



... the water is clearly too hard!

Then you should use better bottled mineral water!

Cheers

I can think of several inspirational painters on PF that are surely capable of this trick......

Mike

And if not:

Like this the water is just really soft ...!

In Perth we have very high iron content in the water which leaves a rusty patina on garden furniture, fences etc. For that reason I use distilled water to thin and mix my acrylic paints.

I've known about this one too for a while. Where I live in the South Wiltshire/North Dorset area the water is full of minerals as it comes up through very chalky soil; generally appliances such as kettles, washing machines etc only last about 3 years. When painting with acrylics I always use water that's been filtered through a simple filter jug, as normal tap water leaves a chalky residue on paintwork & washes (which is a real pain if you forget...….).

“Then you should use better bottled mineral water!”

Probably not the best idea. Mineral water can be just as hard, if not harder than tap waters

You need to use distilled or deionised water.

I live in a hard water area and have never had any problems with my acrylic paints.

Hard, soft, mineral, carbonised, filtered, de-ionised, distilled ? Sounds to me like a good reason for
switching to oils .

Mike

I’ve experienced these problems as well, until I started using bottled water for brush cleaning and thinning. It seems like I routinely end up with a left over partial bottle of Dasani, which I keep handy for this purpose. I’ve never had a problem since.

Kurt