Ben Jonson asked:


First and foremost thing you should consider before trusting any oil painting method is that it must come with disclaimer. More than any other types of do-it-yourself process, oil painting cleaning must actually be trusted to professional conservators. On the other hand, if your painting does not carry expensive tag, or it is not really old, or not too critical, there are few options to make it look cleaner and brighter yourself. In addition, modifying true antiques in fact decreases their value, whether they look better to you or not.

During 1940s, paintings made from oil on canvas were normally covered with the layer of varnish to incorporate sheen and guard the thick layer of paint, name Impasto. However, varnish usually reacts differently to the surroundings than the paint do, so such varnish seals end up cracking, staining or gumming up over time. It could make the real tint of the oil paints appear dull or discolored.

In case, it looks that your painting has gone older, assess whether your paint is in good condition but the varnish has gone old. Here, try using mild solvent name conservation liquid. Art selling stores would usually sell an “emulsion” intended to clean and take away varnish. There is forever option that this solvent would as well harm or take out the oil paint. If you are eager take this risk then wipe the emulsion with a cotton scrub very carefully. Try to do spot-testing one bend before going on to the total canvas painting. Work in an area where you find sufficient ventilation.

When it comes to recent paintings, you might come across the trouble of build-up of smoke, dust, stain, pet hair (in case you have pets at home), dander, and even fungal development. Here, you need to make sure that none of the paints is prepared to come about the board or canvas, in the sense that it does not display any flakes and cracks. After that, you could watchfully clean up the surface with very dry and soft bristle brush, may be with baby toothbrush or shaving brush.

When the painting surface is steamy, mucky and oily, you might desire to take some steps for cleaning by means of detergent solution. However, usually it is not an good idea to mix up water and oil as the moisture could damage both the impasto and canvas. Moving with caution, you can use fresh cotton cloths dipped in a mixture of dish soap and hot water. Then next you need to lightly blot the base, make sure you don’t scrub or rub on the painting. Never should you allow submerging any part of painting, nor must you let the moisture to drip or pool.

vijay asked:


One may come across many advices about cleaning an oil painting, but those tips must come with a major disclaimer. More than other types of rough and ready projects on cleaning oil paintings must really be trusted to professional conservators. Anyhow, if your oil painting is not really old, not terribly valuable, or not too important, there are other potential ways to make it appear good and cleaner yourself. Furthermore altering true antiques more or less forever decreases their value, whether or not they appear better to you.

If it seems that your oil painting reproduction is little older, evaluate whether the paint is in good condition but the varnish has become older. In this case, try applying a gentle solvent known as conservation liquid. Some of the art supply stores may sell an “emulsion” intended to clean and remove varnish. There is always a chance that the solvent would as well harm or remove the oil paint. If you are ready to risk this possibility, pat the emulsion with a cotton swab quite delicately. Try spot testing one corner before moving on to the whole canvas. Work in an area where you find adequate ventilation.

For any of the recent oil paintings, your trouble is more probable a loudening of dust, smoke, pet hair, dander, and other bacterial or fungal growth. In this case, ensure none of the paint is set to come off the canvas or board, sense that it doesn’t display any cracks or flakes. Then you could vigilantly dust the surface with a very soft, dry bristle brush, like a baby toothbrush or shaving cream brush.

When the surface is steamy, dirty, or oily, you might desire to take the cleaning a step further and in fact uses a mild detergent solution. Again, in general speaking, oil and water must never mix, as moisture could be damage both the canvas and the impasto. Proceeding with care, use brand original cotton cloths dipped in a mixture of dish soap and only the warm water. Lightly blot the surface, but do not rub, wipe, or rub at the oil painting. At no point you should sink any part of the painting, nor permit so much moisture that it drips or pools.

Krista QQ(www.123giftfactory.com) asked:


What is oil painting? Oil paints on the canvas. It’s an indisputable definition. I thought that oil painting is more than that.

Any kind of figurative art (including oil painting) is thought of beforehand. The basic rules of studying drawing and painting are very closely connected with the laws of the discipline.



Tip 1. Brushes

You should have many brushes so that not to lose time washing them while working. Take a new brush for every new mix. Use round kolinsky brushes, No.1 to No. 10. To cover larger surfaces, you will need a few #20 to #35 brushes. For final strokes PRIPLAVLENIYE (final blending) you will need a few very soft round and flat average size squirrel brushes. Brushes should be treated very carefully. After every session they should be washed in turpentine and after that in warm water with soap.

Tip 2. Canvas

The canvas should be primed additionally a few more times and in conclusion it should be ground with fine sandpaper. After that the canvas should be scraped with a razor to remove the canvas texture till smooth dead surface similar to the egg’s surface is achieved.

Tip 3. Palette



The palette must be made of hard dark wood, best of all, of pear wood. After work wash the palette with turpentine and scrape it with a razor. Before work wipe the palette with linseed oil.

Tip 4. Paper

The

drawing is made on paper life-size to the smallest details. Then it is transferred to the canvas by carbon-paper. After that the drawing is outlined with brown ink because the first oil layer – IMPRIMATURA (transparent coat that is equal to the middle tone of largest, lightest object in painting) – will wash away the pencil, but the ink will remain visible almost through the last layers.

Tip 5. Still Life Objects

It is very important to have objects for still life in the studio. Don’t be stingy at garage sales and flea markets, you may regret it later.

Tip 6. Lacquer

The lacquer for

IMPRIMATURA is made of 2% of dry DAMAR CRYSTALS and 98% of turpentine. The lacquer for painting is made of 5-10% of dry resin and 90-95 % of turpentine. A couple of lavender oil drops are added directly to the oil-can. Scientists say lavender oil stimulates the brain. However, I think that old masters added it to eliminate the heavy turpentine smell. The lacquer for the final step consists of 30% of DAMAR CRYSTALS, 3% of linseed oil, and 67% of turpentine.

Tip 7. Canvas Cleaning

Before each new layer the canvas (ideally dried during 7 weeks) is carefully wiped with a half of an onion (in order to prepare the dried surface to absorb better) and then with linseed oil. After that the canvas is wiped with a soft piece of cloth.

Tip 8. Mixture

IMPRIMATURA, or the first paint layer. The canvas is covered with a liquid mixture based on Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre Light and Ivory Black (the mixture should have an olive hue).

Tip 9. Basic Set of Paints

The basic set of paints is the following: “Rembrandt” oil colors: Flake White, Yellow Ochre Light, Red Ochre, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber Ivory and Lamp Black (7 Basic Colors), and 4 extra colors (when necessary) which I use in the last layers: Flake Yellow (instead of it also can be used Cadmium Yellow Deep), Madder Lake Deep, Chinese Vermilion, Prussian Blue. But be careful to use these last 4 colors very sparingly.

Tip 10. TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK

The

first and the second TEL’NII (flesh tones: main life colors) PODMALYOVOK (5th and 6th layers). The first TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK is made half a tone lighter and two tones lighter in colors; and half a tone darker and two tones lighter in shadows. The same is true of the second TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK.

Tip 11. PODMALYOVOK

The dead layer – the fourth PODMALYOVOK – is made with white lead, light ocher, red ocher, and burnt bone. The aim of this PODMALYOVOK is penumbra. The picture must look as if its objects were lit with moonlight – olive cold gray color. Colors are applied thickly, half a tone higher, shadows are very transparent, half a tone lower.

Tip 12. LESSIROVKA

The seventh layer — LESSIROVKA : Details of textures, thickly applied highlights, bright reflections, and signature. In this layer you may use additional paints: Prussian blue, red cinnabar, yellow flake (cadmium yellow deep), madder lake deep.

Tip 13. Shadow PODMALYOVOK

The shadow

PODMALYOVOK (the process of creating intermediate layers) is made with Burnt Umber in two layers (2nd and 3rd layers). In the second layer all details are made excluding the texture. In the third layer LESSIROVKA of the main tone masses is made with a big brush.

Tip 14. Music

Many painters get an energy charge from music. Stop listening to any modern music and begin listening only to classical music. Try to begin loving it.

Last, stop looking at modern art and stop loving it. Modern bright colors and hue contrasts destroy the subtle vision of the painter who took risks to study classical painting in our time.

From the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century artists used the seven layer technique. Like music where there are seven notes, seven keys, and within each there are seven more. 7 days in a week. 7 Layers of Paint. Each layer in oil painting must dry for seven weeks. The energy which we receive from old paintings in museums, like ghosts in old castles with old paintings, is related to this magic figure.

Remi Engels, Ph.D. asked:


If you paint with oils you will need a solvent to clean your brushes and thin your paints. Of course, if you paint with water soluble oils then your solvent will be water.

Turpentine is a standard solvent used to thin ordinary oil paints. You can purchase turpentine in any art supply store or hardware store. In some cases, the kind of turpentine you buy in a hardware store may be fresher because of the shorter turnaround time.

Some artists work with mineral spirits. These are also available in hardware stores. To save money, buy the largest available quantity and use a smaller container when you do your actual painting.

Tube oil paint (i.e., oil paint directly from the tube) can be difficult to manipulate. Some colors are stiffer than others and may be hard to evenly distribute over your canvas. To solve this problem, artists often need to mix their tube paints with a so-called painting medium.

A painting medium is a liquid solution that makes the oil paint smoother and easier to manipulate. Adding any one of a number of different painting mediums changes the consistency of the paint. Some mediums are meant to make the paint thinner for glazing and others are meant to make the paint thicker for impasto painting. There are also mediums to shorten or lengthen the drying.

 

The most basic medium is regular turpentine. Adding a little turpentine thins oils paint. Another frequently used medium is linseed oil, which makes the paint more fluid but, over time, it also tends to yellow the paint. The most commonly used medium is a combination of turpentine and linseed oil, sometimes with the addition of a little damar varnish.

Begin by experimenting with a half-and-half mixture of turpentine and linseed oil. Because linseed oil slows down the drying process, you may want to increase the proportion of turpentine. A good mixture is three parts of turpentine to one part of linseed oil.

Once you find the medium you like, mix a batch and store it in a tightly sealed jar. As you paint, dip your brush into the medium, then add a little paint, then mix them together on your palette (mixing surface).

Preliminary compositions can be drawn on your canvas with a so-called thin turp wash, i.e., a little bit of paint with a lot of turpentine. A turp wash evaporates very quickly, so you can quickly paint over them.

In general, the more turpentine you use the matter the finish will be and the more linseed oil you use the glossier it will be. If you like robust, permanently visible brushstrokes, you may want to use less medium. Dry brush is one technique where you do not add any medium at all.

Special painting mediums are also available that change the oil paint in different ways. The most common are those that shorten or lengthen the drying time of the oil paint. Check your art supply store or the Internet to see the available types of mediums. All medium bottles will show instructions on how best to use the particular medium.

Oil paintings must be varnished to protect them from undesirable elements such as dirt and toxins. Varnish is a clear solution made from a resin and turpentine or some other solvent.

In art-supply stores you will see two major types, retouching varnish and picture varnish. Depending on the paint layer thickness, it can take six months or more for an oil painting to dry. In the meantime, the surface of the painting needs to be protected with a coat of retouching varnish. After the varnish is applied, the turpentine evaporates, and leaving a thin protective coat. You can apply retouching varnish as soon as the paint feels dry to the touch.

 

Picture varnish contains more resin than retouching varnish. It should be applied about six months after you complete a painting. If you paint with impasto-like brushstrokes, you may have to wait as long as a year before applying the final coat.

 

Both types of varnish are applied in the same manner. Using a broad, flat nylon brush, apply the varnish evenly using horizontal strokes. You can also use retouching varnish to brighten dry dull patches in your painting.