Varnish Your Painting With a Durable Wet-look Finish

A coating of hard resin will protect your artwork and give it an incredibly shiny surface. If you are looking for that wet-look finish then TotalCast Resin is just the answer. It is an optically clear, high-gloss, hybrid polymer resin system which is especially suitable for the protection of artwork as it provides a tough coating with good abrasion resistance. It is easy to use, safe and non-toxic. It is also great for casting objects from moulds or embedding objects into clear resin.

Easy to Use and Safe

To use this two-part resin simply stir together equal parts of the resin and hardener and pour over your artwork to create a wet-look shine or pour into a prepared mould to cast an object. It is safe and easy to use because it cures at room temperature, is non-toxic and is self-levelling. The resin is non-flammable, odour-free, free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and has no solvent content, so there is no need to wear a vapour mask. For stirring I used a wooden paint mixing stick.

Because it is non-yellowing it is perfect for use on all art surfaces including canvas, wood, MDF and photographs, and can be used over acrylic, oil, watercolour and enamel paint. To create a stable painting structure be sure that your painting is thoroughly dry because the coating, like most varnishes, will prevent any further drying. Remember that, depending on the thickness of the paint, oils can take up to six months to completely dry and acrylics can take a few weeks of curing even after the paint feels dry to the touch.

Each TotalCast Resin kit consists of one container of each component (Resin & Hardener), available in four sizes. When your artwork or mould is ready, simply stir the two parts together in equal parts for four minutes, pour over your artwork or into your mould, and it will start to set within a few minutes. Only mix as much as you need for each work period.

Adding Colour

You can colour the resin with a few drops of acrylic inks for casting objects or for mixed media pour painting. We stock photoluminescent (phosphorescent) powders to mix with the resin for creating glow-in-the-dark objects. The pigment glow will refresh in sunlight each day and it can be re-energised indefinitely.

Coat a Painting With a Wet-look Finish

I made a quick small acrylic painting on a gesso panel. The painting was placed on a paper cup to lift it up, inside a cardboard box with flaps and positioned to level with a spirit level. The well-stirred resin mixture was poured slowly over the painting, it slowly spread and levelled out, you don’t need very much. A quick warming with a heat gun or blow dryer released air bubbles to the surface, where they escaped. The flaps of the box were then closed because any dust landing on the surface during the drying period will be visible on the gloss finish, and it was left to set. The resin creates a thick, glossy coating that is shown here the next day after curing. You can read the full instructions on the product and there is a helpful video below. It is very sticky so you should wear disposable gloves.

I made a quick small acrylic painting on a gesso panel.

The painting was placed on a paper cup to lift it up, inside a cardboard box with flaps and positioned to level with a spirit level. After pouring on the resin and heating to remove bubbles, the flaps of the box were then closed because any dust landing on the surface during the drying period will be visible on the gloss finish, and it was left to set.

The well-stirred resin mixture was poured slowly over the painting, it slowly spread and levelled out, you don’t need very much. A quick warming with a heat gun or blow dryer released bubbles to the surface, where they escaped. The resin creates a thick, glossy coating that is shown here the next day after curing.

Casting an Object

The images below show the latex mould of a tube of paint we created using Pebeo Siligum with a hole at the top to pour into. We cut it open to remove the paint tube, coated the inside with Vaseline and bound it tightly closed with packing tape. We used the same resin mixture as for the painting above but stirred in some Eli aquamarine blue photoluminescent (phosphorescent) powder, designed to be used with the resin. We propped the mould upright and poured the mixture in. We un-moulded it the next day, a perfect copy of the paint tube and it glows in the dark!

Casting an object with TotalCast resin and Siligum moulding material. If you stir in a bit of photoluminescent powder you can make it glow in the dark, too.

Further Reading:

Watercolour Varnish: Can You Make Watercolour Waterproof?

Non-toxic Oil Painting Mediums and Oil Varnishes

Vincent Gordon on How to Make Dammar Varnish

Final Treatments – Schmincke Varnishes and Fixatives

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