Oil Painting Restoration
Restoration in Progress
I have been restoring fine art oil paintings for many years and am happy to say that I have a plethora of happy customers. Many of these have become repeat customers. Those customers along with others have referred their relatives and friends.
Oil paintings are very clever and manage to get damaged in many creative ways. I have repaired everything from painting tears done by outraged spouses to dogs showing their lack of appreciation for a particular artist by pawing the painting. These paintings have needed to have filling and in-painting where the painting has been scratched and torn with holes. The painting would then be varnished.
Other paintings, similar to our species have gotten old and brittle. The paint is flaking and the canvas tears easily. This requires me to first and foremost, secure the paint layer to the canvas. After this is done I would most likely reline the painting. The restoration and conservation of your oil painting would then include filling, in-painting,and varnishing.
I have helped individuals who have had their paintings in or near fires. These paintings requires a unique process of removing soot and old varnish and occasionally in-painting.
Of course, cleaning old and aged paintings is a common service that we offer. An oil painting over 30 or 40 years needs to be cleaned. The process of cleaning would include removing grime, dust, and/or smoke, depending on the environment. Antique paintings would need this process, with the additional service of removing the old varnish and re-varnishing.
One interesting project I had was bringing genuine kindness to a gentleman’s wife’s portrait. The man had the original photo that his portrait painting was done from. His wife looked like a pretty, warm, gentle lady. The artist, for some unknown reason, had painted her with a stern scorn on her face. I was able to restore her sweetness and I am sure that was a blessing to her husband.
One of my clients did something that I think should be dome more often. After I restored an antique painting that had been in his parents’ home, he got professional copies of it made and distributed the copies to some of his family members.
