Old Kayak, Old Paint, Part 2

For the premise of this post, go back one post.  This post is about yet another instance of a paint job gone wrong.  Not functionally wrong, just esthetically wrong, though not entirely, not in my estimation anyway.

 I took these pictures just before repainting the hull of my favorite Unangan kayak, (baidarka).  The reason I was repainting was not that the finish looked spotty. I actually liked the look, sort of organic, but rather that there was wear in the base coat that was letting water leak in.

The original sealer on this boat was varnish which gives the boat a vaguely rawhide colored look.  But I wanted something darker like rawhide that's sat in a museum for 200 years.  I was able to achieve that look, or so I thought until I questioned other people what it looked like and they said it looked like tree bark.  What I had done was mix oil color with varnish and I painted that over the original varnish coat. 
If I had read the label on the varnish I would have found out that once the varnish is fully cured, you need to sand it before you try to paint over it.  As you might guess, I just painted without sanding and so after about a year or so the new paint turned brittle and on exposure to sun started flaking off a little at a time.  As I said, I liked the look - kind of like lichen on a rock or a seal with the mange, but I finally had to throw in the towel on this paint job and scraped and sanded and then covered it over with a coat of gray latex paint.