How To Restore Oil Painting
Any advice about cleaning an oil painting that's covered in dust or yellowed must come with a major disclaimer. More than other kinds of do-it-yourself projects, cleaning oil paintings should really be trusted to expert conservators. Furthermore, altering true antiques almost always decreases their value, whether or not they look better to you. If your painting is not that old, not terribly valuable, or not too important, however, there are a few possible ways to make it look brighter and cleaner yourself.Before the 1940s, paintings of oil on canvas were frequently covered with a layer of varnish to add sheen and protect the thick layer of paint, called the impasto. Yet varnish reacts differently to the environment than does paint, so these varnish seals end up cracking, yellowing, or gumming up over time. It can make the original hue of the oil paints look dull or discolored. If it seems that your painting is older, assess whether the paint is in good shape but the varnish has aged.
Oil Painting Restoration Where more serious damage has been sustained to oil paintings, through flood, fire or accidental damage, conservation methods are used to clean and stabilise the affected areas to prevent any further deterioration. How to Restore a Painting. Repair tears in the canvas and fix cracked or peeling paint. Depending on the size of the repair, the conservator can either re-weave the canvas or choose to use adhesives in order to repair the damage. Re-varnish the painting. Conservators use varnishes to protect the painting and the colors in the painting.
In this case, try applying a mild called a conservation liquid. Art supply stores might sell an 'emulsion' designed to clean and remove varnish.
There is always a chance that the solvent will also damage or remove the. If you are willing to risk this possibility, dab the emulsion with a very delicately.
Try spot-testing one corner before moving on to the entire canvas. Work in an area with adequate ventilation.For recent paintings, your problem is more likely a build-up of dust, smoke, pet hair, dander, and even bacterial or fungal growth. In this case, make sure none of the paint is ready to come off the canvas or board, meaning that it doesn't exhibit any cracks or flakes. Then you can carefully dust the surface with a very soft, dry bristle brush, such as a baby toothbrush or shaving cream brush.If the surface is sticky, grimy, or oily, you may want to take the cleaning a step further and actually use a mild detergent solution. Again, generally speaking, oil and water should never mix, as moisture can damage both the canvas and the impasto. Proceeding with caution, use brand new cotton cloths dipped in a mixture of dish soap and warm water.
Lightly blot the surface, but don't scrub, wipe, or rub at the painting. At no point should you submerge any part of the painting, nor allow so much moisture that it drips or pools.For the experimental types, people have come up with some unorthodox methods of getting dirt off an oil painting. White bread seems to work. Ball up soft, sticky, doughy white bread and gently rub it against the canvas. You'll see it blacken like a pencil eraser.
How To Restore Oil Painting Brushes
Brush off the crumbs. You also might try a low-suction vacuum with a brush nozzle. This should remove pet hair and dust balls in a deeply textured painting.
I would just like to point out that the conservation of paintings is not a topic that should be taken lightly or be done by a DIY-er. Many problems can arise by cleaning undertaken by an untrained person and the conservation of fine art is a profession.
The removal of paint and blanching of the surface are some of many problems which can permanently damage an artwork. Please seek the help of a professional and not a DIY video by someone looking to save a few dollars.Anyone seeking information on how to find a conservator or restorer of fine art should look at the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic works. Alternatively, anyone in Canada should look at the Canadian Association for Conservation. Europeans should check out International Council of Museums - Committee for Conservation. Please don't do any of this! If your painting needs cleaning, take it to a conservator.
The wrong kind of brush can damage your painting, and under no circumstances should you use any type of cloth on the surface. Never use solvents or any special solutions. Conservators carefully check the painting's vulnerability to different substances and pick the safest one to use, if you use the wrong substance you could irreversibly damage the painting. Don't risk it! Take it to a professional conservator. This is nice but no one who says to consult a professional, defines who that professional might be?I have a 16x14 painting done by a family member.
I don't know if there is a coat of varnish. I do know that after tons of smoke around it, it could use a cleaning. I tried just a little paint thinner but the 'snow' in the painting is still yellowed. I also have a museum quality print and it has darkened.I don't want to spend a fortune but would like to have these cleaned correctly. I am located near Raleigh, NC. Re posts by anon62542:He/she is quick to tell us we are idiots.
And maybe we are. But posting with an anonymous random ID sure doesn't lend credibility.So, anon62542, since you have so much knowledge, why not put your name on it?Meanwhile I tried the white potato thing but I didn't do it seriously. The white bread rub makes sense but I haven't gotten to that one either.There's all kinds of stuff on the net about cleaning paintings. That being said, I would do my homework first.
I wouldn't take foodstuffs to an Edward Hopper. I've heard about the potato thing. I'm going to try it on a dirty nicotine-stained painting that I did myself 30 or so years ago.Old paintings I possess I am reluctant to touch without having them assessed by somebody very knowledgeable. Sometimes you'll get a hit by posting a picture on an a popular art message board-especially for people who don't know anything about their art.I know art so the items I have require expertise. I was took a piece to a Madison Ave. Gallery (Alfred David Lenz) because they supposedly handled Lenz and the guy looked at the 3-D engraving and blew it off as a photograph.So do your homework. I paid $20 for that one.
Lord, some of the above is frightening! The guiding rule with oil paintings is that if you don't know what you are doing, don't do anything more than wiping with a soft dry cloth. And that is only if the paint is absolutely secure and not flaking at all.Whatever, do not take instruction from the likes of anyone who advises hosing oil paintings down outside.
That is just staggeringly stupid and criminally irresponsible and destructive. Water (damp) is an absolute killer of oil paintings.
It isn't the oil paint at risk, it is the gesso that holds the oil to the canvas. Get that damp at all and the paint will come adrift. If you kept a hose on. A painting, the paint will eventually just slide off.But even if dried off quickly, as the person maintains, the gesso will have been shot and while it might look fine for long enough to fool someone, an oil on gesso painting will have been fatally damaged and paint and gesso will spoon start to separate. And the best way to save it then would be to get it wax lined so that the wax/resin soaked through literally holds the paint in place instead.And just for the record, it is heartbreaking to see the traversties of desecration on both paintings and frames in the name of 'restoration' by those who don't know what they are doing. I restore things for people regularly.The guiding rule is.value. of the item:1.
If it is at all of value, look up a specialist and let them do it - you will be so glad you did! Get a guarantee that if, a few months later, damage from the restorative shows up, that your specialist will do it over or fix it.Also.insure.that way, if something happens you'll be covered.2.
If, however, the painting is one you paid 5 dollars for at a tag sale, and can afford to throw away, should restoration not work, then you can have fun trying a number of things to clean it.It's all about studying. The thing carefully and using your commonsense about cleaning.always less, not more.if a plain dry soft brush or cloth will do it, then do not use solvents of any kind, or get into complex cleaning procedures. You'd be surprised at what a plain buffing can achieve.test.
Some people call conservators the 'magicians' of the art worldOftentimes, the colors of older paintings have a brown and yellow tint caused by an organic varnish that has yellowed with the passage of time. Such tints can become so opaque that no true color or depth of background is visible, making the actual painting seem to have almost disappeared. When this happens to a painting, a restoration, conducted by a trained conservator, should be considered.Many people think conservators are the “'magicians' of the art world. They are actually trained art historians, chemists and materials scientists, and they combine these areas of knowledge with the manual dexterity and color sense of a skilled artist. A good painting restorer or conservator must be as talented as the original artist if his or her handiwork isn't to leap out at the viewer as a clumsy repainting of the original art.To follow is a description of the painting restoration process that highlights the details a conservator must examine and the types of information he or she should be knowledgeable of when restoring a work of art.The Restoration ProcessUpon receiving a work that needs restoring, a conservator should examine the work, making note of the signature to identify the artist.
Trained as an art historian, a conservator should be aware of the style of that period, the painting technique, and the materials available to an artist of that time. This knowledge will help the conservator identify the pigments and fabrics that were popular and available to the artist and help him or her determine the best approach for the restoration.Conservators will often remove the frame and look under the “tacking” edge (a thin area hidden beneath the edge of the frame) to uncover pigments that are light and clear.
This helps a conservator see the true color scheme.A conservator will often continue examining a painting with the aid of an ultraviolet light, noting a greenish or blueish fluorescence on the surface of the painting. Trained in chemistry, the professional conservator knows that resinous, organic varnish, like Damar or Shellac, creates such colored luminosity when subjected to incident light or other electromagnetic radiations of shorter wavelength, especially violet and ultraviolet light.If a layer of varnish is discovered, a conservator will perform a small cleaning test to remove it. Using a solvent on a cotton swab, a conservator gently rubs open a window, displaying the true color beneath. This will help the color palette used by the artist become apparent. The whites are white, the blues are blue. And so it continues as each pigment reacts to the solvents—— different solvents in different strengths with different rates of evaporation.A conservator continues this complicated process, examining with a magnifying glass and a microscope, using different lights, making notes and taking photographs at each stage to carefully document every part of the restoration.An oil painting is composed of multiple layers of pigments suspended in medium (oil and turpentine).
Regardless of its subject, a painting is simply a created illusion, striving to depict three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. All of pictorial art history is simply a studied investigation of ways to create depth, air and space. And, as with any illusion, these methods are extraordinarily fragile and subtle. It is with these that the artist claims virtuoso skill.Wearing a jeweler’s head-mounted visor, a conservator carefully removes each layer of varnish and then washes the area with a 'retarding' solvent to remove any residual solvent and reveal the underlying image. No pigment is removed or abraded. This delicate work progresses slowly and incrementally, stroke by stroke, each viewed under a magnifying lens.
As the old layers of varnish and dirt are removed, the painting slowly begins to appear.This is not magic but a meticulous chemical process performed by a trained and steady hand accompanied by a highly educated and experienced eye. A conservator's training and care insure that the solvent does not go too far, either removing the original pigment or chemically burning the surface. There is no margin for error since any loss of pigment is irrevocable.Slowly, the work continues until all the varnish is removed. The three-dimensional illusion not only remains intact but comes alive.A conservator, trained in material science, also can address a painting’s structural problems. Conservators will often remove the painting from its stretcher and cover the front with a protective “facing” composed of wet paper and emulsion. This protects the surface while he or she uses a surgeon’s scalpel to carefully remove years of dirt and grime from the back of the canvas.Any material used to repair or strengthen the canvas must be both chemically compatible and reversible: that is, any material used on a work of art must be able to be removed without harming or discoloring the original paint.Finally, a conservator will remove residual adhesive and restretch the painting onto a new museum-quality stretcher.
Once this is complete, the conservator is ready to repaint.The conservator, with the hand of a trained artist, brushes a synthetic, nonyellowing, removable varnish over the face of the painting. This is called an “isolating varnish,” because it separates the original painting from any paint that will be added to reconstruct the design. Dry pigments are used in synthetic, nonyellowing medium, and paint is used in areas of color loss, using exactly the same colors, texture and surface sheen of the surrounding areas. The principle here is that the conservator’s paint should only touch areas of actual paint loss and should never overlap undamaged original paint.This demanding work is done under the jeweler’s visor using a pointillist technique and tiny sable 00 or 000 brushes. Once this 'in painting' is finished, a conservator will brush on one final coat of protective varnish.When these steps are complete, the painting has been restored. It is no longer fragile.
The colors are vivid and alive, revealing the artist’s original vision. All materials used in the restoration are noninvasive and can easily be removed without endangering paint layers or affecting the work in any way. The painting can be enjoyed for years to come.Art Care TipsAs an advocate for preservation, a conservator should inform clients of techniques for preventing damage to their art.