I have a matte liquid varnish for watercolors, but when I tried to apply it with a brush, it seemed to react with the colors underneath and the light tones faded a bit. I'm going for bright and lively colors, so I really don't want them to fade or tone down...

>>2528516
I have no experience with varnishing watercolour, but if you want the colours to pop you need to go for a gloss varnish. Matte varnish dulls the colours down.

>>2529193
Well, the client wanted it matte... So I'm just trying to find out how to do it.

>>2528508
Fixative. Use a matte fixative in thin af layers, then once that's built up varnish using dammar/turps in a 4:1 ratio

>>2528508
what if you barnish with the smallest quantity of barnish you can, wait a few minutes till that thin layer dries, then add more, and repeat, that way the barnish won't reactivate the color

>>2530031
I will try the fixative because I used varnish on a test canvas as >>2530320 suggested but the paint came off a bit. Anyway thanks for the help!