Until it happened, I’ve only read about getting mold in your watercolor tubes. I never thought it would happen to me.
Until it did.
I opened up my tube of black gouache and yuck! Fuzzy white stuff.
I knew what it was immediately and promptly threw out the tube.
Luckily, I use so much black gouache that I had several extra tubes handy so I continued my painting without missing a beat.
But still. Yuck!
What went wrong?
Well, I can only guess.
I must have let the black gouache from the tube touch water. You know when you’re pouring out some paint from your tube into your palette? Be very careful not to let it touch anything. Let the paint drop down into the palette.
Also, we moved from a dry area to a very humid area. We’re now in East Texas, which is literally a cross between forest and reclaimed swamp land.
We live with bugs. Lots of bugs. Lots and lots of bugs.
It’s because it’s forest and reclaimed swamp land. You’re going to get bugs. And you’re going to have a lot of humidity.
So my question is, is this a humidity thing? Do you have to worry about getting mold in your watercolor tubes if you’re living in a desert?
I’m guessing not as much.
I think this is more of a problem for us folks who live in humid areas because the years I spent watercolor painting in a dry climate, I never had this problem.
So the lesson learned – if you live in a humid climate, you have to be more aware of your watercolor tubes. Make sure when you pour watercolor out of the tube into the palette, it goes one way.
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