The majority of my videos thus far have focused on paintings executed in oil on canvas,
but for this one we're going to be taking a look at a painting that was done in oil on a piece of paper
that was then glued to a piece of wood.
Now you can see that the painting is quite dirty, but more importantly, as the wood has expanded and contracted with humidity changes,
it's caused waves, ripples, and tears and other damage in the paper and
we're going to alleviate those damages by removing this painting from the wood.
It's not gonna be easy, but the end result should be worth it.
Now the first step like many of the other conservations I've done is to get the painting clean.
And in this case, I'm gonna be removing an old discolored brown varnish. And I'm doing that using solvents.
And because this painting is really small and because the paper is pretty fragile, I'm going to be using these swabs
instead of hand rolling larger ones that I'll sometimes use for larger paintings.
And when I start cleaning a painting, because different types of paint, different colors of paint, can be
fugitive and that is they can be more vulnerable or less vulnerable to solvents,
I try to focus on cleaning one area of a consistent color at a time.
So here, I'm working just on this sleeve area because it's predominantly white
with a little bit of black and a little bit of brown in it
and if I focus in on just that area,
there's a higher degree of success and a lower degree
that one of those colors is fugitive and that there's any damage done to the painting.
So working in very small, very concentrated areas and trying to focus in on like colors,
I have the highest chance of
successful cleaning and the lowest chance of damaging the painting.
This painting was exceptionally dirty and as you can see
just removing this
varnish starts to reveal the really great colors that are under this painting
and with the face fully clean, we can start to see the sensitivity with which the artist painted Aristotle in thought.
As we zoom out and get a better look at the painting with about half cleaned,
we can really start to see the change that's going to take place once the painting is fully cleaned.
So moving on to another part of the painting, again
I'm just working in small sections
trying to control the solvent and trying to
give myself the highest degree of success and the lowest chance that any of the original paint is damaged or removed.
Now before anything else happens to the painting,
I must protect the paint layer and this is done using a reversible heat activated adhesive and
Japanese tissue paper.
The adhesive is painted onto the surface of the painting and once there's full coverage, the tissue paper
can then be laid down atop the painting directly.
And this is going to add a layer of protection so that the paint layer doesn't get scratched or scuffed or damaged during handling.
On top of this layer of tissue paper,
I'm going to add more of the same adhesive
and then I'm going to add a layer of Belgian linen canvas.
And this is called "facing" and not only does this protect the painting from handling,
it's also going to stabilize it from any movement and any potential losses
if any of the paint film becomes detached and because I'm working on a very thin paper and removing this wood panel,
I really want to make sure that this painting is stabilized and protected before I do anything and this is the way to do that.
Now with that facing dried, I can begin what's arguably the hardest and most delicate
process of this conservation and that's removing the wood from the paper.
Then first I'm going to secure the wood panel to a piece of MDF
using screws and brackets. If you'll notice this MDF has two pieces of wood on either side.
Now on top of that piece of- those pieces of wood, I'm going to place an aluminum
structure into which I can place a router
with a clearing bit. I can adjust this clearing bit down and then I can begin removing material from
the painting. And this used to be done with chisels and hand planes
but using the router is a little bit more effective and a little bit faster when it comes to removing the mass of the material.
Now I'm not going all the way down,
I'm leaving about a millimeter, two millimeters worth of wood at the bottom and that I will remove
with hand planes, scalpels, and chisels.
With the majority of the material now removed thanks to the router,
I can switch to hand tools, specifically chisels and hand planes to remove the remaining wood.
Now this is where having the facing comes in very very handy and is absolutely necessary.
Even though I'm trying to be very very careful and delicate with how I remove this wood,
I'm still subjecting the painting to quite some handling and a lot of friction and
tension. And so making sure that that paint layer is stable and protected is absolutely essential.
Working slowly and deliberately, I'll remove little bits of wood, piece by piece until I have it down to about
1/64 or so. Basically the thickness of a playing card and then at that point, I'll switch from the chisels and hand planes
to a scalpel for the last step.
Oftentimes at this stage, solvents or water can be used to soften the adhesive
bonding the wood to the paper and the wood will peel right up. Unfortunately,
nothing was successful in softening the adhesive this time.
So I resort to using my scalpel to very carefully and slowly removing all of the wood from the paper.
It's slow-going. There are no tricks, and you have to be careful to not cut the paper
because it's very delicate and on the other side of it is the paint film.
And with the wood all removed, I can scrape the back of the canvas making sure that all of the adhesive residue is off.
With the wood finally removed, we're left with a very delicate piece of paper and paint.
So to provide some more support
I'm going to add a piece of
Kozo, that's Japanese tissue paper. The same that I use for the facing and I know you're gonna ask why I'm not wearing gloves
but I want to use the warmth of my hand to allow the paper to expand evenly on both sides.
If I'm wearing gloves, I can't do that and it's important the paper expands evenly because I don't want any wrinkles or ripples to be trapped.
With the painting now stabilized and secure thanks to the added tissue paper,
I can begin removing the facing. Here, I'm using a solvent to soften the adhesive
and I'm going to use my scalpel and other tools to peel back the top layer of belgian linen canvas.
Now remember, there's another layer of tissue paper directly on the painting
so removing the top layer of Belgian linen is relatively risk-free because it doesn't make contact with the paint film.
Once that layer is fully removed. I will repeat this process and remove the tissue paper.
Removing the tissue paper, however, is a delicate procedure because it rests directly atop the paint layer.
So going very slowly, piece by piece
I will peel back that top layer of tissue paper and reveal the painting underneath
This is always very rewarding to see that all of the paint is still in place
and there's no damage and that the facing was a success.
Now even though the painting has been stabilized with additional tissue paper,
it's still way too fragile to do anything with. So after consultation with my client, we decided that the best method of
stabilizing this piece was going to be to mount it to two pieces of paint ply acid-free museum board.
Then we could have mounted it to canvas and stretched it,
we could have mounted it to a honeycomb panel, but we decided that this was going to provide the best solution for the client.
So using the hot table and an adhesive film, I'm going to mount the painting to those boards.
I'll trim off much of the excess board leaving about 3/8 of a border to facilitate easier framing.
A putty will be used to fill in any areas of loss or damage on the paper or paint film.
This is necessary to facilitate a smooth surface onto which to apply the retouching.
And It's crucial to use the sense of feel and touch
to make sure that all of those areas that are low or uneven are filled in and even.
The next step in the conservation is the retouching process and while this painting did not have a lot of losses,
there are still areas where the painting was damaged during its lifetime that need to be corrected to make sure that the viewer can
enjoy the painting as a whole and not just see the damage. So using archival and reversible pigments,
I will slowly go about finding all of the areas where the damage exists and touching them up, making sure to not be excessive.
There are times when applying the retouching goes very well and then times when you think it goes very well
but in reality upon second glance
it's not so great.
The benefit of using archival and reversible pigments is as you can see, I can remove those pigments very easily without running risk to the painting below.
And take a second shot at it, and
hopefully the second time is better than the first.
With the retouching all complete, the varnishing can begin.
I'm using a natural bristle brush and a synthetic resin varnish with an ultraviolet inhibitor in it
and I'm going to simply brush this varnish on. I don't see the need to spray it
because the painting is small enough and the surface is even enough and the varnish will provide a nice
even finish. So working back and forth, making sure I have even distribution and good coverage,
I'm just ensuring that there are no brush marks.
Now every once in a while a hair will get stuck in the
varnish and it needs to be removed and the best way to do that is by using
the edge of the brush to just pick it up quickly.
And so here, we have the finished fully conserved piece. It's been cleaned,
it's been removed from the wood panel that had caused damage,
it's been filled in and retouched and finally varnished.
This painting is now stable. The boards that it's mounted to won't move, won't cause any further damage.
The varnish has been removed, the true colors have been revealed, and by all accounts this conservation was a huge success.
This video encompasses about 40 plus hours worth of work spread out over a couple of weeks
and while this conservation was interesting and rewarding for me,
it's definitely not something I would have attempted early on in my career due to the high probability of failure or damage.
I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did the work and you can go ahead and subscribe to my channel or find me
on Instagram and Facebook for additional content.