Oh yeah if you photograph whilst varnish is still wet you get sone total brilliant pictures.
talking of varnish it has a number of unusual properties, I prefer the old fashioned stuff preferably honey coloured, not that it is sold as honey it is sold as clear, I avoid the plastic varnish nasty nasty stuff.
tral varnish also has a property that allows you to make real ripples! Make a layer dry, make a secon layer let almost dry add a third layer, preferably on a warm day the two top layers dry at different speeds and it adds natural ripples
fyi even when you know this ‘trick’ it is not a slam dunk, if it fails repeat and you are almost certain to win on a 50/50 basis
the ripples here were enhanced by modelling water glue which is stiff but mostly this is varnish layers, I add white paint afterwards for the white foam effect
light especially natural light across picks up in the glue/varnish with an excellent copy of the real thing, if no natural light a torch can imitate with a little bit of playing about
these honey tones are my preference
Fig / smoke is teased cotton wool
lily pads are paper cut and painted green set between varnish layers
