Monday, May 18, 2015

Mixing



There is paint and then there is paint. Usually my mixing involves tablespoons or less of pigment in various support media. Today the amount of paint involved a couple of gallons. I must say it really does not matter what kind of paint it is; I enjoy mixing colours. This time it was for a property we are trying to sell… Not wishing to spend much money I looked at what was in the crawl space and selected a couple of tins. Both were fairly dark colours, one cool and one warm. I emptied the warm colour and poured in about half of the other making up approximately one gallon then added a gallon of white to finish it off. Two gallons should do for one bedroom and leave some left over too. There are times when my expertise comes in handy. There are times when I wish I did not know so much! In any case, sometime this week we will be painting walls instead of canvas. Life is still good.   

Monday, May 11, 2015

Perfect Weather




I am truly thankful for camera dating. The sixth of May. Living in Alberta, the occurrence of snow in May is not that unusual. Moisture is always appreciated too. We were just hoping for a different form; a nice warm rain would have done. I, however, wanted warm dry weather. I had requested perfect weather for the ninth of May sometime in April. We were celebrating. It had been a long time, about four years, since we had celebrated “Raclette” as a family. “Raclette” used to be a yearly event. The plan was to gather in the neighbourhood of twenty people around the fire pit to share this special, traditional Swiss meal. It is basically wine and cheese with a few embellishments thrown in, such as homemade pâté. Our little abode would be somewhat cramped with that many people inside it. So as I gazed upon the new white blanket I wondered how we were going to manage. For some reason I did not panic and went about the business of preparing lesson plans for the two schools with which I am working. We would see. After all there were a whole six days before the event. As it turned out, the snow actually made it possible for one couple to come, he being a farmer. The fields were too wet. The evening of our get together happened to be sunny, delightfully warm and snowless. Perfect weather indeed! Life is good.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Restoration



Once I had the canvas repairs in place, the indentations on the front of the painting needed attention. The first step was to remove the varnish. At this point I am fortunate to have a good memory. Having done several murals around the same time as this series I assumed the varnish would be of the MSA UVL sort. This means it is oil based… to remove the varnish one uses mineral spirits or turpentine. Applying some high quality paint thinner on the surface it became evident my assumption had been correct. I have since switched to Polymer based varnish for work destined to hang in interior settings. Carefully removing the softened varnish with some rags I noticed some residue on the edges. Upon closer inspection I wished I had chosen a rag which had not been part of a red sweatshirt. Applying more mineral spirits I removed the telltale red fluff and some more varnish then let it dry overnight. Using a very thin coat of molding paste I reconstructed a similar irregular surface to the painting, filling in the indentation and let it dry overnight too.  Matching the paint is the final chore. This could pose a problem for some. It depends on the style and the degree of finish in the painting. For me it should be a easy fix as grass is varied in colour, tone and texture. A quick re-varnish and all will be done. Life is good.