In my previous post, I presented an excerpt from an article that described, in general, the ingredients of water-based paint. It also indicated that other additives were usually added to enhance the performance of the paint. So I mixed up water, white glue, TiO2 powder, and 10 drops red food coloing – similar to an earlier “recipe” – and got a very splotchy, unsatisfactory, result…
Then I remembered a post by Mark (@Notnewton) where he mentioned Floetrol… a water-based paint additive that levels out the finish and eliminates brush strokes. Turns out the local “big-box store” carries it and it’s not that expensive ($10/qt), so I got some… makes sense it’s not hard to find as there’s lots of painters out there 
My recipe so far (as best I can remember):…
Add 2 parts TiO2 powder and 2 parts water into a small jelly jar. Carefully stir… won’t be same volume as 4 parts water. Add PVA glue to double the current volume. Add 2 parts Floetrol, 2 more parts water, and 10-12 drops red food coloring to tint. Stir well with stir stick… try to avoid creating bubbles.
Prepared a couple of tiles with this mix… looks far closer to spray painted than ever before…
The results are definitely better though it looks as though there were still a few bubbles on the frog… but the blacks are not bad and the flower girl looks as good as any tile I’ve ever done. Photos and solid colors may always be problematic but the two-color black and white engravings are looking good to my not-so-trained eye.
The Floetrol looks to be doing good things however so I’ll add some more and see what happens. Hopefully I’m sneaking up on it??? It’s pretty obvious I don’t know what I’m doing…
– David