Hi everyone,

Surely a difficult question to answer in short, but I'll try my luck anyway! I'm practising different wet-on-wet and wet-on-damp techniques these days, more specifically I'm exploring that crucial point where your paper turns from wet to moist to damp, trying to identify that point where you can still add stronger pigment without the pigment spreading too much into the wet paper. What I seek is that nice, softe edge, but without too much dilution. So far, I'm not very successful, so I'm starting to wonder if it comes down to the "wrong" pigments/paint, or if I just have to keep at it.

Do some pigments/paints/brands spread more than others? Does transparency and opaqueness come into play here? Which ones are more "self containing", in lack of a better word? I only own WN prof. paints, use mainly ultramarine, cobalt, both siennas, both umbers, and yellow ochre. I find that all of them spread more than what I want, even when the paper is what I would describe as almost damp, where it has lost its shine, but is still clearly moist/damp. Even stronger mixes dilute too heavily when adding them gently to the paper (both Arches and SW behaves the same on this occation, I find), and I also don't want them too strong either, because then I lose the subtle, misty effect I'm after.

Any tips out there? Magical, less-spreading paint wanted..