Surface too smooth for varnish?!

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Hang on Studio Wall
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I've made a start on varnishing some of my year-old knife-painted oils and have hit an unexpected (to me) snag. Or, rather, a complete lack of snagginess. I had thought that the tricky bits would be the area with lots of texture, but there are a few passages where - seemingly - there is no texture. It's very smooth. And the varnish (Winsor & Newton Artist's Gloss Varnish for oils, applied with a flat varnishing hog brush) just doesn't want to stick to it. If it was a piece of wood, I'd get the sandpaper out. But if it was a piece of wood, it wouldn't have lumpy bits next to it that I wanted to keep as they are ... and I don't, actually, want to sand the painting anyhow. Am I doing something wrong? Might spray varnish be a better idea?