Why does nobody talk about gel medium eating through acrylic paint

I layered a thick coat of gel medium over a canvas I painted last July and came back two days later to find the paint underneath had lifted and cracked in half a dozen spots. My art supplier said it was probably because I used a student-grade paint with too much binder already, but I've never had that happen with any other additive. Has anyone else run into this or is my workspace humidity just wrecking everything?

3 comments

3 Comments

betty_kelly97d ago

Sounds like your paint went on strike and the gel was the scab, huh?

spencer7827d ago

Heard the same thing from a buddy who paints Warhammer minis.

angela5877d ago

Three years ago I had the exact same thing happen with a Liquitex heavy body and some cheap gel medium from Michaels. I had a whole series of little 8x10 canvases I was working on and about half of them ended up with that dried, cracked alligator skin look. My studio sits right next to a bathroom so humidity is definitely a factor here too, but I switched to a higher quality gel and never had the issue again. So yeah, your supplier might be onto something about the student-grade paint being extra sensitive, but the gel definitely started the fight.