The pots are the part of a kit that most often causes trouble, and almost all of it is avoidable. Three problems account for nearly every complaint: a pot that dried out, a light color that will not cover, and running short of a busy color with two evenings left.
What is actually in a pot
Ordinary acrylic paint, pre-mixed to a specific color and portioned for the areas of the canvas that carry that number. It is not a special formulation. It behaves exactly like tube acrylic: it dries by evaporation, it forms a permanent flexible film, and once dry it does not re-wet.
That last property is the reason for most of the rules below. An open pot is drying from the moment you take the lid off.
Ours are supplied vacuum-sealed, which is the difference between paint that arrives wet and paint that has been slowly drying in a warehouse. It is a detail nobody thinks to ask about until they have received a kit where it was not done.
Keep them alive
- Open one pot at a time. Working one color across the whole canvas before moving on is better for the paint and saves an enormous amount of brush rinsing.
- Close it the moment you finish with it. Not at the end of the session. A pot left open for an hour has skinned over, and that skin is the color you needed for the second coat.
- Never load the brush straight from the pot for fine work. Take a small amount onto a scrap surface and work from there. It keeps water and other colors out of the pot, which is what contaminates them.
- Do not rinse a brush into a pot. Obvious, and it happens under fatigue at the end of an evening.
When a pot has stiffened
If it has thickened but is still soft, stir in one drop of water and mix it thoroughly. One drop, not a splash. Adding water reduces the paint's covering power, which causes the next problem on this page, so it is a repair and not a routine.
If a pot has set solid, water will not bring it back. Acrylic that has cured is a plastic film and it is finished. That is what the matched extra paint sets are for — one per design, with the same colors in the same numbering.
The light-color problem
This is the most common complaint about any finished kit, and it is not a fault in the paint.
Pale pigments — yellows, creams, whites, pale blues — are the least opaque there are. One coat over a printed guide number will usually leave the number faintly visible through the middle. It is physics rather than manufacturing.
The fix is two thin coats with proper drying between them. Not one thick coat: a heavy application dries with visible ridges and the number still shows. And not thinned paint, which is the exact opposite of what a pale section needs. Give the first coat long enough to dry fully or the second coat's brush will lift it. The reasoning behind all of this is in our guide to layering acrylic paint.
Not running out
Kits are portioned for one coat over the areas that carry each number. Anything you do beyond that uses more:
- Second coats on the pale colors, which most canvases need.
- Softening edges between sections, which uses noticeably more than filling flat areas.
- Skies, water and snowfields, which are large and often carry only two or three numbers between them.
The colors that run out are predictable — look at the canvas before you start and find the two or three numbers covering the most area. If those are also pale, order the extra paint set with the kit rather than discovering it at the end.
Two small habits
Wipe the rim before you press a lid back on. Dried paint on the rim is why a lid stops sealing, and a pot that no longer seals is a pot that will be dry next week.
And rinse the brush before the paint sets rather than at the end of the evening. Acrylic drying in the base of the bristles, up inside the metal ferrule, is what actually kills brushes — not use. Our cleaning guide covers the rescue attempts worth making on one that has already stiffened.
New to the format? The beginner guide covers a first canvas end to end, and the designs are in one collection.
