in this video we're gonna follow along
the restoration of an icon of Ave Maria
on wood when this piece arrived I was
impressed with the extent of the damage
and just how precarious the piece was as
you can see there are massive sections
of loss lots of the paint has completely
detached from the wood structure the
paint is flaking all over and it's
incredibly dirty so before I can even
begin to think about any restoration
procedures I have to address the fact
that all of this paint is literally
detached from the wood support so
carefully I'll remove the pieces of
paint that have completely detached and
I'll place them on an acid-free piece of
foam core I'll try to keep them aligned
so that I know where they'll be returned
to during the restoration process I'll
also use digital photography to document
the location of these pieces so that
they aren't lost or misplaced during the
next steps in this case the main reason
for the separation of the paint from the
panel was not only due to the movement
of the wood but poor preparation of the
panel itself as the paint layer
separated at the gesso so I'll remove
all of the old gesso all the old rabbit
skin glue and any other materials I find
on the panel to reveal the raw wood so
that I can stabilize it and prepare a
new layer for the paint in addition to
being quite damaged this wood had
suffered pest infestation and rot over
time and wasn't really providing a
stable support for the painting now
there would be an argument to be made to
remove the painting completely from the
wood and transfer to a new
superstructure but in this case the
client wanted to keep as much original
as possible and I agreed with him so I'm
injecting a b72 resin into all of the
voids of the wood and I'm going to fill
them with this b72 to not only solidify
the wood to fill the gaps and to
stabilize it and this b72 resin is
stable it's reversible and it'll fill
the gaps so that all of the open areas
will be solid
the back of the structure shows just how
damaged the wood is due to rot and pest
infestation so again I'm going to inject
the resin into all the gaps to fill
those gaps and stabilize the wood and
I'm going to brush the resin on so that
it penetrates into all of those voids
and I'll repeat this process until the
wood is completely saturated and can
accept no more resin with the resin dry
we can start to see how all of those
voids have been filled and this not only
creates a smooth surface onto which I
can prime and prepared the wood panel
but it also ensures that the wood isn't
going to move any more because this
resin will act as an adhesive and hold
those two pieces of wood together so
I'll go ahead and using the scalpel and
the sensitive touch of bare fingers
remove any excess resin that's on the
surface of the wood here I'm using an
acrylic gesso that I'll modify so that
it has better penetrating properties
because when I apply this first layer of
gesso to the wood I want it to penetrate
deep into the wood pores to ensure that
there's a good bond for the successive
layers so that any fill-in and
retouching that I do after the painting
is fully cleaned won't suffer the same
fate of detaching as the original paint
did so just working slowly and very
carefully I'm going to make sure that
the entire area of exposed wood is
covered I'll let it dry and I'll repeat
I'll let it dry and I'll repeat over and
over again now before I can start
cleaning the painting I have to
stabilize and secure all of these pieces
of paint that have somewhat detached
from the wood but not completely so here
I'm using and heat activated and solve
an activated solvent and I'm injecting
it into and under and around all of the
areas where there is lifting in this
case I have to penetrate the paint layer
to access the void underneath and inject
the adhesive again penetrating the paint
layer injecting the adhesive until
there's maximum saturation later I'll
come back and I'll activate the adhesive
and bond this paint
or back down to the wood so moving
through all of the areas that you can
see that are lifting and flaking I will
inject the adhesive let it cool and dry
and then come back at a later time with
heat and pressure and stabilize all of
these areas so that they won't be at
risk of flaking now with all of the
loose paint layers stabilized I can lay
down a layer of adhesive and to begin to
put the puzzle back together taking all
of those pieces of completely detached
paint and placing them back onto the
wood structure that has been primed I
can ensure that there's going to be a
good bond now luckily the pieces are
fairly large and the image is a good
guide but I will refer back to the
digital images that I took earlier if I
find myself a little lost as to where a
piece will go even the smallest pieces
need to be placed back where they belong
and secured to fit once this adhesive
dries there's not much room for
maneuvering the pieces of paint layer so
I want to make sure that I have a good
solid fit from the get-go
now with the adhesive fully dry I can
begin bonding all of those pieces of
paint back down to the wood so here I'm
using a heating iron a piece of silicone
release film and a piece of felt to
apply even distributed and mild heat to
the surface of the painting the silicone
release film makes sure that nothing
sticks the felt allows me to apply
pressure without damaging the surface of
the painting now finally with all the
paint stabilized I can begin the
cleaning process after making quite a
few tests to understand what was on the
surface and settling on it being a
accumulation of linseed oil
I decided on using a gelled solvent to
remove the built-up grime now linseed
oil is not easy to remove but the gelled
solvent does allow me to soften it and
then
move it now I know a lot of commenters
are gonna say that I should never start
in the face but in fact I made dozens of
tests all throughout the painting before
I began working on this and for the
purposes of making an interesting video
working on the face and the main figure
is a little bit more entertaining than
working on the background nonetheless I
will work to clean off all of a linseed
oil from the background and from the
gilded areas to reveal the gold now some
areas can't be removed with solvent and
so I'll turn to a scalpel to delicately
scrape off that built-up grime with the
painting fully cleaned I can begin to
start building up a new base layer of
gesso and putty so that we have a smooth
surface onto which I can do the
retouching there's nothing complicated
about this it's just a matter of
building up layer after layer until we
have a nice proud surface that I can
then remove with a scalpel and swabs and
again people are gonna say why aren't
you using gloves and it's because I
can't feel the surface through latex or
nitrile gloves but with my bare fingers
I can feel it and I want to make sure
that I have the perfect surface for the
retouching now before any retouching can
begin I first must remove any excess
filling material from the surface of the
painting in preparation for an isolation
layer of varnish to be applied now this
isolation layer is going to be b72 resin
and it's going to be brushed on and it's
going to serve two purposes one it's
going to isolate the original work from
any additional work that I do the
retouching and the rebuilding and two
it's going to saturate the colors and
simulate what they'll look like when
they're finally varnished because I want
to make sure that my retouching matches
what the painting will look like in its
final state now at one point this icon
was heavily embellished with gold leaf
but over time much of that original leaf
was lost luckily there is some still
left to provide a guide and so I'm going
to be rebuilding it using traditional
gilding techniques you saw me applying a
size and here I'm cutting the leaf into
small manageable sections and I'll apply
it to the size
tamp it down with the brush and then
using other brushes I will ensure that
it's got a good bond and remove the
excess I'll work the leaf with various
tools and altona with a tinted shellac
to make sure that it matches the
original now with the painting fully
stabilized filled in I'm ready to begin
the retouching now in this case I'm
using a different retouching method than
you see me used before for this piece
I'm going to be using an Italian
technique called treta Geo you have to
pardon me if my pronunciation isn't
perfect but it means to sketch or to
hash out in Italian and the particular
technique I'm using is called Riga Tino
which means stripes so effectively I'm
sketching with vertical stripes and the
goal of this technique is to conceal or
camouflage the damage to the eye but not
completely imitate what was there so the
goal is at a few feet back you can start
to see the image come together but as
you get closer you can see the
restoration work that I've done and
that's an appropriate method for working
on old masterpieces or icons where we
want to preserve some semblance of
artifact but still allow the piece to
look complete and full
and the last step with the retouching
all complete is to apply a new
ultraviolet stable fully reversible
varnish in this case I'm using Rogalla
res varnish with a tin youin 292
stabilizer and this is fully reversible
ultraviolet stable conservators varnish
and I'm brushing it on in this case
because I don't want to spray it and
cover the entire piece so as you can see
the piece is fully conserved the damage
has been addressed while still
preserving some of the artifact
qualities of the piece and I'm very
satisfied with how it turned out
and I'm excited for my client to see it
too so I hope you enjoyed watching the
process of restoring this icon of Ave
Maria it was a fun project for me it
allowed me to show you guys some
different techniques different
approaches different materials than some
of my other videos and I'm really
excited with how this piece turned out I
think it looks really great while still
acknowledging some of the history of the
piece and preserving it in a sensitive
way so if you would like you can go
ahead and subscribe to my channel for
more videos and if you have any
questions go ahead ask away in the
comments and I'll try to answer them