Spaces Between The Gaps: technical

Setting Up an Art Fair or Market Stall

Thursday, November 03, 2011

The stall of WhereFishSing aka artist Fiona Morgan at the Ballarat Artisan Fair 2011

Set up of my stall in progress for the Ballarat Artisan Fair

Ballarat Artisan Fair. This Friday, Saturday and Sunday 4th, 5th & 6th November 2011. The Mining Exchange, 8 Lydiard St, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia (just a few doors down from the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery). 10am - 4pm each day. Some forty or so regional artists will be displaying and selling their creations, along with music, coffee, nibbles, artists talks and demonstrations. Come along if you can.

Today has been consumed with the set up of my stall at the Ballarat Artisan Fair. This is the first time I've prepared for an art fair. It's taken several weeks to get everything together, from varnishing all the (70+) paintings, to sourcing gift bags (that never arrived!) to printing promotional material. Below is a list of everything I've been able to think of to take along or have prepared. I'll append it afterwards as there are bound to be new insights gained from participating in the event.

Table

Trestle table or two
Many markets require a white table cover, so get a white sheet or two, or something nicer such as velvet (not velveteen as it looks cheap) or satin or canvas
Large butterfly clips for clipping tablecloth to table, and gaffa tape the same colour as the table cover for hiding the clips
Clamps for backup clipping tablecloth to table
A bucket or box as a bin for under your table is rather handy

Promotional material

Business name banner with rope & eyelets and gaffa tape for hanging options
Business cards
Email list signup sheet on clipboard (essential!!)
Pens for signup sheet, attached by string
Postcards of artwork
Photo books of artwork - show off more than you can bring on the day as interested people may ask for a commission based on what they see you are capable of
Photo board of artwork - lots of artwork to choose from on the day but too many paintings to display at once? Show photo samples of your full range. Individual artworks can be shown on request.
Artist statement for display, possibly laminated
Price tags, ready and blank (who knows what will happen on the day and how many you will need)
Nice paper to print out price tags and artist statement and any other small signage

Displaying artwork

Figure out the stall design and layout first
Builders level for getting frames hung straight (so good)
Wire/hooks/picture hooks (a roll of fencing wire, some pliers and tin snips are super handy to make hooks of any size or strength)
Framing wire (make sure it's rated to cope with more than double the weight your work weighs)
Fishing wire to make a washing line artwork display (useful for giftcards and other small lightweight works)
Sinkers to weight down display wire to make it stay taught
Small bulldog clips x 24 for hanging unframed artwork washing line style (these are super handy)
Cotton gloves for handling artwork
Frames, ready to hang
Pliers - fat and thin
Hammer
Wirecutters (tinsnips are far more effective than the scissor part of pliers)
Screwdrivers - an assortment
Masking tape
Scissors
Gaffa tape / cloth tape in colours to match your display elements
Blu-tack
Double sided tape
Backboard/screen on which to hang artwork
Window cleaner and paper towels for cleaning the glass & frames - essential

Storing artwork

Portable box storage system
Glassine paper for unframed artwork

Looking after me

Portable music
Lunch - no heating required, not messy
Snacks - nuts, fruit, quick, not messy
Water - have two litres
Coffee, tea, hot drink in thermos or hot water plus bags/containers, milk
Camping chair or something to sit on, plus a cover to make this presentable

Selling artwork

Change from bank for cash sales
Cash storage - bumbag or tin or wallet
Credit card payment facilities - if not provided, take a laptop with easy access to the Paypal site, laptop power supply, powerboard and extension cord
Certificates of authenticity - ready to print (take printer, extension cord and spare ink) or already printed out in doubles and take carbon paper
Clip board with attached pen for filling out the COA's - very handy
Packaging for sold artwork - precut cardboard sleeves / boxes or gift bags and bubble wrap
Phone, charged up
Red dot stickers
Paintings, varnished and framed
Pencils
Pens
Notepads
Packing tape
Regular stickytape / sellotape

If you're an artist and have useful notes to add from your experiences of art fairs, please enlighten the rest of us in the comments.

Square Brush / Square Touch Brushwork Technique

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Pickled Eggplant - Fiona Morgan. An example of square brush in my work.

There was once only one way for a painting to be. The surface had to be smooth, the brushstrokes invisible. Anything less was considered scandalously unfinished. This is talking about the history of European painting of course. Over time, this idea has loosened. Broad brushstrokes, suggestions of detail, obvious brushmarks are now obliviously normal.

Detail of Bastien Lepage's Sarah Bernhardt showing the loose brushwork that has influenced so many modern painters today.

The impressionists really smashed the idea of hiding every brushstroke, but the idea had been gaining ground for quite some time. The artists Velaquez, Bastien Lepage and even as far back as Rembrandt had been toying with letting the painterlyness of paint do the talking.

Angela Morgan painting featuring square brush technique

Angela Morgan (no, not a relative!) makes a real feature of square brush technique in her work.

Square brush or square touch technique is a version of the broken brushstroke technique the Impressionists were famous for, and it is common today.

Detail of a Joe Sorren painting showing off square brush technique in the background

Detail of a Joe Sorren painting showing off the square brush backgrounds I love in his work.

Usually using brights, flats or filberts, the flat of the paintbrush is used to lay down squarish strokes of paint directly, unblended, in a jigsaw pattern.

Aldro T Hibbard, and many of the Rockport school of painting are characterised by a square brush technique.

It gives a chunky feeling which is great for modelling structure. Different planes of an object can be deliniated easily with different temperature strokes and different values.

Arthur Streeton showcasing the atmospheric quality of square brush.

It easily gives soft edges useful for atmosphere and light.

Daily painter Layne Cook with a dramatic square touch example showing the removal of detail.

The size of the squares eliminates distracting detail and therefore has a unifying effect on the painting as a whole. Anything smaller than one square stroke has to be really important to be included. This eliminates visual clutter, focussing the viewer on the most important aspects of the painting.

Dean Cornwell showing the square touch painting technique

Dean Cornwell with an excellent example of fooling the eye into seeing more detail than is actually there. Look at the greys - the timbers and the ground.

It gives a pixellating vibrancy to the surface of the painting. Each stroke can be a slightly different colour and angle which makes the painting appear to sing with more colour and detail than is actually there. The eye detects colour changes and hints of detail. Square touch is a way of fooling the brain into adding what it thinks should be there. Thank you impressionistic heritage.

Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish portrait painter, managed to subtley use square touch throughout his career of figurative painting, despite being ahead of his time and the difficulty of this technique in portraiture. It's much more suited to still life and landscape.

A most excellent wrap up of square brush technique is over on Stapletearn Kearn's blog. Muchly recommended.

http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/2010/07/more-on-brushstroke.html

There are loads of artists who make great use of this painterly technique. Know of an artist whose work is loaded with square brush? Tell us! Leave a comment.

Pigments & colours for oil painting artists

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Rock painting - an example of the first pigments used by artists

Photo by gearyste

It began innocently enough with the decision to do an inventory of all my oil paint colours. This led to an investigation into pigment codes, the internationally standardised colour index names such as PV 14 (that one is Cobalt Violet). Then it was down the rabbit hole of information searching for drying times, lightfastness, opacity, working properties, toxicity, recommendations, conflicting information, incomplete information, current colours, discontinued colours, new colours... I resurfaced about 9 days later.

I'll summarise what I found. It won't take 9 days.

There are some great resources online if you want to find out about the colours that you use. No need to search around, I have some gems lined up.

All of the resources here I have printed out and put into a folder of their own for my easy reference, along with the pigment charts from the paint manufacturers that I use or like, my inventory of the paints I have and would like to try, and my super dooper spreadsheet of all the most relevent info in one at-a-glance chart...

The excellent online resources

Art School At Home - a blog with an excellent overview of common pigments in each colour group. Written by an oil painter learning her way through the maze of information. Ideal as a first stop. The link is to the first post on the colour groups.

Pigments for making Artist's Paint - Paintmaking.com - the pigment section of this website is extraordinarily useful. Lots of information that is useful to a painter (oils, acrylic, watercolour, fresco). Goes into more depth, covers more pigments than Art School At Home and is still very accessible reading.

Oils and Pigments by Jan Esmann - pdf - free download made available by this artist who makes his own paints. Very useful, eyeopening, if more technically informative than most artists will need. Contains the sort of information that an oil painter would be interested in. A bit of history, working properties, working lightfastness, do's and don'ts etc.

Color Index Pigment Information Database - this website is a world unto itself. All the pigments used for colour are listed, broken into their colour groups (yellow, red etc). There are links to manufacturers of most of the colours, a little bit of history on the pigment, official lightfastness, toxicity, and general notes.

Dick Blick Art Supplies - on the page of each individual tubed colour is a tab of pigment info. This covers a lot of pigments. Very handy.

The Artist's Handbook by Pip Seymour - pdf - I didn't actually print this one out, but I did find it contained quite a bit of useful information when I was researching. A lot of what is in here is covered already in the other resources.

The super dooper bit

Photo by moron noodle

There was no one place where I could find all the information I wanted, at a glance, for oil painting. So I put it together myself. It is gathered from the above resources and about a gazillion google searches for each individual pigment. Though this is as comprehensive as I could make it, I am sure you will be able to find the odd pigment here and there that has been missed. Sorry, there are a lot of pigments in use. All the most common ones are covered. This is what really took up the 9 days of investigating.

It's a print-friendly chart, organised by colour groups, with colour index name, common paint name, oil paint drying time, opacity, useful notes and working lightfastness. Working lightfastness? Yes. Many pigments have a high lightfastness rating on their own but fade in tints or mixes. In practice this means that they fade, as a colour is usually mixed with another.

The Oil Paint Pigment Chart - everything at a glance

You may download this pdf chart right here. Oil Paint Pigment Chart. Pass it around if you please.

Hopefully it will be useful during your next paint shopping trip.

Technical Articles for Artists

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Photo thanks to Seattle Municipal Archives

This page is the place where all my technically inclined articles on art and painting are archived. The topics range from details on painting materials, to the business of art, to specific art techniques.

As this blog has grown it has become more and more difficult to easily find these, which are published about once a month. This is a shame as these are often the most useful and popular posts. There is now a direct link to this page from all areas of my site, on the sidebar.

As part of my continuous learning I go in-depth on a topic that interests me at the time and write up what I have learned. For me this is a way of consolidating the knowledge for myself, putting it in one place that I can refer to again in the future, and sharing my findings. I am quite particular and go to some lengths to get the information right, so I trust it will be of good use to more people than just myself. Each article also contains links to the most useful resources I have found during my investigations.

This post is part of an annual blog feature over at The Altered Page called 'Buried Treasure'. There you will find links to unearth the top posts on many art blogs.

Learn & enjoy and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at my life as an artist on Facebook.

To use this page - First give the script that collects all the relevant posts a moment or two to load. It should be done by the time you get down to reading this sentence. If not, close your eyes, tap your heels together three times, and that should do the trick.

There is a short preview of each post when you hover the cursor over the title.
Titles are in alphabetical order, but you can click on the date column header, 'POST DATE', to sort in ascending or descending order.
Click on a specific label (not the column header) to display only the posts tagged with that label ie. art techniques
To go back to the full list, just click the column header, 'LABELS'.

If you want to do a plain search of this blog, use the Blogger search box which is at the very, very top of this page on the LHS, next to the B outlined in orange.

Hide TOC

************

art business

Beginning your own art collection

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Image by by Incase

So you've decided you'd like to begin your very own art collection? Or perhaps you're contemplating the idea? Here are some pointers to get your collection going in the right direction for your cashola and enjoyment. My other article, 'How do I know what art to buy?', gives pointers on choosing individual pieces of art.

First up, $500 a year is enough to begin a collection. Yes. So if you think you can't afford your own art collection you're probably wrong.

Secondly, a collection of related pieces of art is far more valuable than a random collection. You'll get more enjoyment out of becoming an expert on your chosen niche of the art world too. Don't be random. Choose a theme for your collection, it doesn't matter what it is as long as it's something you're interested in. Local artists or surreal artists, landscapes or cartoons, oil paintings or stencils, there are many ways that you could choose to do this. Remember, there is more financial and enjoyment value this way.

You might want to write down what your collecting theme is to help keep you on track for when you find art that you love that doesn't fit with your theme. Just a suggestion.

Thirdly, you also may want to take into consideration your living environment. In that, humid or coldly damp places and works on paper are not a good match (add insects and direct sunlight to that list), bronze sculptures are almost indestructable which is useful for bushfire zones, massive sized artworks don't fit in apartments and if you have a colourfully decorated home the art you choose may need to fit your home colour scheme. If you are worried about an artwork fitting in with a change in decor, remember that like a good piece of furniture, a good artwork will transfer just fine into a different residence.

Where to find the art you want and can afford.

The primary art market means buying direct from artists or via galleries representing an artist. This is the cheapest way to start your collection, with artist direct being the most hip pocket friendly. Generally, the less well known the artist, the lower the price of the work. You can find artists online, artists selling direct from their studio and artists selling via exhibitions in both commercial and artist run galleries. There will be publications in your area listing all the latest exhibitions. Visit and view. Get on the mailing lists of artists and galleries that you like so you find out about new works and shows first.

The secondary art market means buying from other art collectors. Usually an art dealer or gallery is involved. Art auctions are another form of the secondary market. If you are buying via auction, remember that there are cycles in fashionability in the art world. This affects auction prices significantly. What's not in fashion is cheaper to buy.

A couple of notes

An artwork with a signature on the front is more valuable than a similar piece with a signature hidden on the back or missing a signature altogether.

Oil on canvas has traditionally been seen to be the most valuable of art mediums, but this is changing with so many more materials available to artists and more knowledgable conservation techniques.

Go with what you love. You'll be looking at it for a long time.

How Do I Know What Art To Buy?

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Photo by E. Bartholomew

This article is cheekily brought to you by the Official Art Store for WhereFishSing, with the announcement that at last, all of the Autumn and Winter cookbook paintings have been released for sale. Yes, all the original paintings are now available to own.

How do I know what art to buy?
It's a common and understandable question. I'm interested in having some original art on my walls, but I'm not sure what art to buy.

But what? Perhaps a quick think about what art to avoid would make things clearer.

Mass produced prints vs original art

Let's start with mass produced prints vs original art. A mass produced print, say from Ikea, has absolutely no possibility of financial appreciation. You may like it, it may be convenient. Your cash will go into the pocket of a multinational and you own a pretty but worthless picture.

An original piece of art, no matter how obscure the artist, has some potential for financial appreciation. How much will vary from artist to artist. You will be able to find an original that you love just as much as any mass produced piece. It will be unique. Until you are used to seeing original art vs mass produced prints, you may not be aware that an original will have so much more detail and life to it. A piece produced by hand almost always has this extra dimension. Buying an original means your cash will go into the pocket of the artisan and will help enable them to make more of their unique, labour intensive pieces.

A quick FYI. An original painting is one of a kind. An original print is not a reproduction, but an original piece in it's own right. There will be a limited number of these produced by a hands on method. A reproduction print is a mechanical reproduction of another piece of art. Reproductions may be in limited or unlimited editions and these have the least value due to the fact that they are essentially authorised copies.

So where to start?

Look at art. Get to know your artists. Very quickly, actually instinctively, you will know what you like. You may have friends with similar taste. Ask them for artist recommendations.

Figure out your price range. There is a perception that original art is unaffordable to the average person. Not so. Have a look around, online and off. Truly, there is art for every budget. Not to mention, for every size of wall.

There's a final litmus test for any artwork

It's the most important criteria of all which puts all uncertainty into place. Do you love it? While there's no guarantee that any original will realise the potential for financial growth, you can guarantee that you'll be gazing on this artwork for years to come. Does it make you feel? If not, pass. But if it's a source of happiness, if you would love to be living with it and it's in your price range, give Ikea a skip and go for it.

If you're thinking of starting a collection of art, you may also find 'Beginning your own art collection' useful.

Excited by the potential of owning an affordable original piece of art? Why not head on over to the Official Art Store for WhereFishSing and see if there's something there that sings to you.

Alkyd Oil Mediums Compared

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

All the alkyd mediums compared

This post is for the oil painters.
Rather than wasting a lot of time working through one different jar of medium at a time to figure out which ones I might like or hate working with, I decided to be all ~~organised~~ anal, buy every one I could get hold of and compare the lot at once.

All these alkyd medium were tested on the same scrap of acrylic primed canvas at the same time. You can see the results altogether in the above photo. If you click on it you'll get a much larger version. The ambient temperature was around 16C, with no humidity to speak of. No paint was included, this is just the medium itself brushed on. The samples were left indoors in my studio, in the open but not in direct sunlight. I was wanting to know how fast these fast drying additives really are, how glossy or otherwise they may be, how thick or thin they are to work with and how much of a colour cast they have.

The price breakdown is partly for my memory, partly for your international curiosity and partly to remind my fellow artists to do material costing breakdowns for the health of your business if you don't already! Many of these mediums are available in larger quantities which works out far cheaper, per millilitre. This is their worst case scenario.

The testing was limited to the mediums I managed to obtain. For instance, would you believe there is only one Gamblin supplier in this entire country? Here in Australia, Art Spectrum (an Australian brand) and Windsor & Newton are available everywhere. Everything else requires a bit of hunting.

I am more than happy to add mediums to this list if you have personally tested them. I am well aware that this is but a small sample of what's out there.

Medium	Notes
Archival Fat Medium	4 hours drying time Somewhat glossy Very yellow, almost orange Consistency of oil $6.50 for 100ml = 6.5c/ml
Art Spectrum Liquol	1 hour drying time Very matte Quite yellow Consistency of turps $12.15 for 100ml = 12.2c/ml
Art Spectrum Glazing Gel	1-1.5 hours drying time Very glossy Quite yellow Thin thixotropic gel $16.99 for 150ml = 11.3c/ml
Gamblin Galkyd	4 hours drying time, plus very, very tacky from about 1 hour Very glossy Quite yellow Consistency of thickened oil $27.45 for 237ml = 11.6c/ml
Windsor & Newton Liquin	nearly 4 hours drying time Very matte Somewhat yellow Thin gel $12.99 for 75ml = 17.3c/ml
Sennelier Flow & Dry	4 hours drying time Somewhat matte Somewhat yellow Thin gel $11.39 for 75ml = 15.2c/ml
Lukas Medium 3	1 hour drying time Very glossy Perfectly clear Consistency of turps $11.35 for 50ml = 22.7c/ml

Photographing Paintings For Artists Records

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Photo by Arty Smokes

So the paintings are finished and ready to go to new homes and you want to record your work for posterity. How to do this professionally at home without needing studio lights.

What you will need

Your dry artwork, unvarnished
A bright overcast day - yes outdoors in diffuse sunlight is actually the best solution to photographing shiny oil paintings if you don't have a studio setup
A camera, preferably digital (does anyone even use film cameras any more?) and even better, DSLR - check that the megapixel capability of your camera is sufficient for the size of print that you may want for your records. Here is a useful megapixel to print size chart
A good camera lens without any distortion or vignetting
A polarizing filter for your camera lens - this is to cut out glare from highlights
A tripod
A grey card - this will make your colour correcting a breeze (yes this is an affiliate link)
A sturdy support for your painting
A dark piece of cloth or paper - this is to minimise or prevent a colour cast from the surroundings

The photography setup

Wait until your painting dries.

You will get the best photos of dry or nearly dry oil paintings. If the oil is still wet, it will shine in areas and the oil remaining in the painting will reflect light differently than the dry areas of the painting.

Go outside on a bright overcast day.
This is crucial. I've tried bright sun. I've tried shade. I've tried bright days and dull days and I swear every combination in between. I can say from experience that the best conditions to get beautiful rich colour and no glare on your painting is a bright overcast day. What's that? Basically a sunny day with lots of clouds. Colours around you should appear normal, not dull. Shadows should not exist or if they do they have soft edges. Once the edges of the shadows turn hard, it's too bright and you will get glare spots on your paintings.

Position the painting at 45 degrees to the sky, facing the sun (ie north here in Australia, or south for most everyone else).
I think both perfectly upright and laying flat on the ground also work too, but this is the setup I found was ideal for me. Place a sturdy support (helps eliminate shake from small and not so small breezes) at 45 degrees to the sky, cover with a black cloth to reduce color interference, and put the painting on this.

Point the camera straight at the painting.
Fill the camera view with the painting as much as possible. Use every pixel possible! Remember to tilt the camera slightly down to match the angle that the artwork is leaning - this will help minimize distortion. Check in the viewfinder to see if all the sides of your painting are parallel to the viewing edge. If not, your camera is at a different angle than the painting. Fiddle until you get this right. Also, remember to set the tripod up so that your shadow is not on the painting as you stand over it!

Trouble with your artwork looking like a big bulge?
That’s to do with the lens. Use the zoom on your camera to zoom in until the bulge effect disappears and the painting edges are parallel with the viewing edges, while simultaneously backing away from your artwork so it fits the viewing space. Or use a standard 50mm lens.

Camera tips

Use the largest image setting possible for your camera to get the highest resolution images
Set your camera's ISO to its lowest native setting to ensure the least amount of image 'noise' - aim for 50 ISO
If you can, lock the SLR mirror up as this will reduce camera shake as the shutter fires
Use a self timer if you can to eliminate any camera shake as you press the shutter button
Always bracket exposures - huh? Take shots slightly on either side of what your camera says is the ideal exposure as it's not always right for each picture
Don't rely on auto focus to get it right, sometimes a small manual tweak does the trick

Shooting

Shoot the grey card first.
This is to get a standard for the lighting and will make your colour correcting easy peasy. Then shoot your paintings. Try and have some of the grey card in the shot, to the side of the painting too.

Post processing in your digital darkroom, aka Photoshop

Once your shots are off your camera and on your computer, compare them at full size for colour, focus/blur, contrast etc to choose the best one.

If none of the images are quite right, take the time to re-shoot your painting. This is your archive. It's worth getting right. Once the paintings have gone to their new homes it's next to impossible to borrow them back to re-shoot them.

With editing, often you will find that a small increase in contrast is all they need. Sometimes a small amount of colour correcting can go a long way, too. This is where that grey card shot comes in extremely handy. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel - download this free and super helpful kick ass pdf by one Michael King on how to use a grey card to colour correct artwork.

Always save your images as tiff or psd for maximum information retention. Only save them as a jpeg for emailing once all edits have been done as the jpg format is so small because it throws out fine detail information. Always keep a tiff or psd version somewhere so you can archive your image without any loss of information and re-edit in the future.

Useful links to peruse

http://artlinkswap.org/photographing_art.shtml

http://emptyeasel.com/2007/01/19/how-to-photograph-your-artwork-for-a-portfolio-or-the-internet/

http://michaelking.ca/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Grey_Card_Tutorial.pdf

Varnishing Oil Paintings

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Picture courtesy of John Kannenberg

A go-to overview of why and which to help you figure out if your painting has been varnished to conservation standards...

This is a companion and follow on article from the last technical article on varnishing acrylic paintings.

Why do we varnish oil paintings?

Uncoated oil paints will absorb atmospheric moisture even in regulated environments and can eventually develop friable surfaces that will crack. A layer of varnish protects the paint from shallow scratches, atmospheric pollution (dust, hair, chemicals) and, ideally, UV radiation. This layer can be removed and replaced when it has become too dirty to wipe clean, and the painting will still remain in perfect condition.

An artist may also choose to apply varnish to bring out and highlight the lustrous gloss of oil paints. Or they may want to unify the painting surface with a single finish. Oil paints dry to varying degrees of glossiness depending on the pigments, with dark colours tending to dry far more matte than lighter ones.

What's the difference between permanent and retouch varnishes?

Retouch can be painted over and is often used in the painting process to restore the undried appearance to a dried patch of painting for colour matching while an artist continues the work. It is also used as a temporary final varnish for touch dry works, though this is not necessary as a thin coat of final varnish can be used safely in this situation. Retouching varnish doesn’t have the quality that a final varnish has. A final/finishing/permanent varnish makes your painting look a lot better.

Permanent varnish is a confusing name as it is (or should be) removable. More accurately, it is a final varnish that goes onto a dried painting as the final, finishing removable protective layer.

How long do I have to wait to varnish an oil painting?

The Gamblin website answers this really well:

"How to tell if a painting is ready to varnish is easy - just touch it. If there are impasto areas, gently press your fingernail into that impasto. If it is firm underneath the top layer of the painting then it is ready for varnishing."

"In general we recommend painters using alkyd resin painting mediums wait three months before varnishing. Painters using an oil/dammar mix in their painting mediums should wait six months."

And what if the painting is touch dry, sold and needs to be shipped? Varnish is better than no protection. Just remember that this final coat is meant to be thin! A thick coat on a fully cured painting may not cause any problems apart from raising a learned eyebrow, but on a touch dry painting it will significantly retard or even prevent the drying and curing process, with unpredictable consequences. A painting can continue to dry under a thin coat of final protective varnish.

A varnish can be used mixed in with the paint to add gloss, right?

Yikes NO! I mean, yes, this can physically be done but it's really not a sound idea. Here's why:

A medium (something that is mixed in with the paint to alter it's properties) becomes integral to the paint. It can't be removed separately. If varnish is used mixed in with the paint and then that same varnish (or one that dissolves in the same solvent) is used as a final varnish, what do you think happens when that final layer of varnish gets removed for cleaning? Yep, the paint layers dissolve and get cleaned off as well. Hardly ideal!

This situation can be a problem when an artist has used Dammar as both a medium and varnish in the same painting. Watch out!

All varnishes are formulated to be removable (at least they should be). Solubility is one of the characteristics that distinguishes a varnish from a medium.

What's the best varnish to use?

There's a bit of debate over this. The traditional versus the modern.

The traditional go-to varnish is Dammar. This is a natural tree resin. As such, it's source is variable. Gum can be contaminated with gum from other trees. The quality varies from year to year. The artist has to be quite careful to apply it thinly. It is known to crack and yellow. The lifespan is around 20 years for a coat of this varnish. It is very easy to remove with gum turps and Dammar has been used for around 400 years so it's properties are well known and familier.

Modern synthetic varnishes are can be an acrylic solution or a styrene varnish or a ketone resin. They are more consistent in quality and easier for artists to apply well than natural resin varnishes. Although not predicted by computer aging simulations, in real life they do darken a little with age, but they are not as prone to cracking as the natural resins. They tend to be a little harder to remove, and mineral turps is often used as the solvent.

Although both varnishes do the job of protecting a painting from atmospheric pollution etc, conservationists now tend to prefer and recommend the synthetic varnishes. These have the added advantage of being mould resistant ( because they "close off" completely i.e. they do not leave any capillary holes for drying, they do not trap any water or "food" for mould on the surface) and can have UV protection built in.

To UV or not to UV?

Again from AMIEN:
"The best varnish for your oil painting will contain UV inhibitors. They will delay the deterioration of the most egregiously poor color (say, a fluorescent marker color) for ~5 - 10 years in an outdoor exposure. That might not seem much, but put that color, coated, indoors in a low-light exposure and try to extrapolate a service life: it will be longer, but how much longer is difficult to say... We have to say that the UV inhibitors offer an advantage, especially when incorporated into coatings that will be applied to colors that are good in the first place, and that such coatings are better than unmodified coatings, and that coating paintings of certain types is a good thing."

For artists - here is a list of modern synthetic varnishes with UV inhibitors

This is not an exhaustive list. If you know of others, please let me know in the comments. I am happy to add them.

Gamvar
Lascaux UV Protect
Windsor & Newton Conserv-Art Gloss Varnish
Golden MSA Acrylic Varnish
Soluvar

After personally contacting all the Australian manufactures, the only Australian made varnishes that make this list are by Derivan as part of their Matisse range (stunning customer service too by the way):
Derivan Matisse MM14 High-Gloss Varnish (turps-based), MM15 Matt Varnish (turps-based), and MM29 Final Varnish Satin Finish

And some spray on varnishes that do the job. Artists, please note that spray on varnishes are very very baaaad for your health unless you have seriously excellent ventilation and wear protective gear.
Krylone Conservation Varnish and UV Archival Varnish

Some tiny tips on the how-to of varnishing

Your varnish brush should not be used for any other purpose so it is always clean-no color.
Soft brushes generally leave thicker layers of varnish
Stiff bristle brushes can leave very thin coats through a gentle scrubbing motion.
Mix matte & gloss to get satin
Use two coats for the final varnish
Allow each layer of varnish to dry overnight

Technical linky goodness

An excellent thread on varnishing on a top forum.

Excellent article on varnishes, mediums and what conservators like at the moment based on an interview with a conservator:

Table

Promotional material

Displaying artwork

Storing artwork

Selling artwork

More art technique articles

More art technique articles

The excellent online resources

The super dooper bit

The Oil Paint Pigment Chart - everything at a glance

More art technique articles

More art technique articles

Mass produced prints vs original art

So where to start?

There's a final litmus test for any artwork

More art technique articles

Archival Fat Medium

Art Spectrum Liquol

Art Spectrum Glazing Gel

Gamblin Galkyd

Windsor & Newton Liquin

Sennelier Flow & Dry

Lukas Medium 3

More art technique articles

What you will need

The photography setup

Camera tips

Shooting

Post processing in your digital darkroom, aka Photoshop

Useful links to peruse

More art technique articles

Why do we varnish oil paintings?

What's the difference between permanent and retouch varnishes?

How long do I have to wait to varnish an oil painting?

A varnish can be used mixed in with the paint to add gloss, right?

What's the best varnish to use?

To UV or not to UV?

For artists - here is a list of modern synthetic varnishes with UV inhibitors

Some tiny tips on the how-to of varnishing

Technical linky goodness

More art technique articles

About me

Newsletter

Follow

Recent Posts

Blog Archive

Categories

Copyright Notice

Subscribe To