Thread by @CMichaelGibson

#easylikeSundaymorning restoring this badly damaged 300 year old painting from the UK.

There are tears and holes in the canvas and missing paint.

Art restoration brings together my love of restoring things to vitality, painting, science and woodworking / cabinetry making.

I started by patching the tears & holes by using archival acid free glue to add new linen canvas to the back of the painting.

You can see how deep the holes are. Lots of layers of gesso, hide glue, & paint had been used 300 years ago. I have filled in the holes with Gesso, a kind of stretchable plaster. I added Lots of small layers until the gesso was just a little higher than the surface of painting

I’m letting this gesso dry and will then sand it down to be level with the surface of the painting. I have a board underneath to flatten the canvas.

While waiting on this to dry, I have been cleaning the frame with soap and water. I use a soft nylon paintbrush because I don’t want to lift the gold leaf off the painting. I have used hundreds of q tips. You can see how much dirt was removed in the left VS the right.

I learned a lot watching You Tube videos from this talented art resoterer who website is here baumgartnerfineartrestoration.com

Here is a you tube video of him cleaning and repairing an old painting. It’s only 15 minutes long and a nice intro. It’s Not a 4 hour long series that Grace says is as exciting as literally watching paint dry

This person is an amazing art restorer. His clients generally want things to look new and vibrant.

I have a different philosophy: I want my pieces to retain the patina of being 300 years old. There is a beautiful soft yellow brown tone and the colors are muted, not bright.

For instance, I like the Botticelli on the left better than the restored one on the right. Which do you like better?

Poll: Do you like a soft golden 300 year old patina or do you like a painting to be restored to look like what it did when created?

There is no right or wrong answer here, just personal preferences. I do think it is intellectually interesting to see what Botticelli originally intended on the right, but aesthetically I prefer the left side. Just my preference.

It’s so interesting. I’m researching ways to have my new paintings have craquelier like on the left, not my new version on the right.

I was a less experienced painter and used less paint on the right. You can still see the canvas through the paint on the right.

Now we have to figure out what color this man’s jacket is. 300 years ago the painter likely used Venetian Red which was named after the quarry, near Venice, where Titian sourced his earth reds. Take a few minutes to read about old masters paints here oldmasters.academy/old-masters-ac…

I gave the surface of the painting a very light cleaning with soap and water and very very dilute Gamsol. Very very small amounts of pigments came off indicating there was likely no varnish on this painting after the last restoration attempt which was poorly done

I actually cut , scraped out the poorly done restoration in the past and decided to start fresh in these areas which had large globs of paint that did not match and distorted the surface.

Before trying to match colors I put stand oil on ... notice how much more deep the colors are

End of day 1: it’s come a long way from the 300 year old painting with tears and holes in it 😊🙏

By the way, Venitian Red was to light and orange for much of the jacket, it was great in the highlight areas that needed retouching. For much of the velvet jacket I needed French burnt Sienna which has more red than regular burnt Sienna. Mars black was needed in shadow areas.