Shots and Gum

All I have to do is look at a shot and I am as nervous as I was when I was a child in the doctors office.

The shot that we gave the Easley Painting today will make it better.

We used a needle to inject more glue into the rip on the painting. Then, we forced the rip edges flat by pressing them.

Then, we dealt with a surprise: gum!

Someone had stuck gum to the back of the painting while it hung in the library. It blended into the canvas color. We noticed the gum when we were transporting the painting and it stuck to something!

After glue and gum, we were back to color matching

and paint application.

We can now see the progress from when we first put the patch onto the back...

until now.

Things are looking good, and we are on our way to being done with this restoration.

Re-touching the Painting

Here is the Easley Painting now that we have done a little work on it. We will still be spending some time putting more layers of paint on certain places, but the painting is coming along very nicely.

I'll tell you about what we have done since the last blog.

Here you can see the patch that is now on the back of the painting. After several days, the glue on the patch was dry enough to begin work on the painting front.

Here is the painting front. The rip edges came together very nicely. There is some discoloration, but this is normal.

You can see a closeup of the rip.

Here I am carefully cleaning the painting.Jan is a color matching genious: she mixed colors to match the paint on the portrait.

Our mixed paint was applied to the scar left by the rip.

Here you see first a picture of the rip without paint.

Here you see a picture of the rip with the first layer of paint.

Here I am covering areas rubbed by the painting's frame.

After the first layer of paint.

Edge before paint.

Edge after paint.


There will be more paint applications over these same areas, once the paint has dried. Another area that can use our attention is the varnish. As you can see from this close up, the varnish has flaked off in large areas. This gives the painting a splotchy appearance. This often happens over time and will be easily fixed with a thin layer of varnish.

Repairing the Painting

To make a patch, Jan and I cut a small square of canvas and pulled out the strings along its edge.

Then, Jan used a paint brush to apply a thin coat of rabbit glue to the back of the painting.

After this, our patch was placed over the hole.

At this point, we worked to lay the threads of the patch flat before the glue could dry.

Finnaly, we placed a piece of wax paper over the patch and put a pile of books on top of it, to ensure that it would dry flat.

A Painting to Repair

Walter Shrower, Art Department Head at Bluefield College, has asked me to repair a painting of Mr. Easley for the college library. This repair was lovingly requested by an Easley family member.

The painting has a rip in it.

I wrap the painting to keep it protected, then, I cross the college campas with it. I'll take it to Jan's house and she will work with me to repair it.