Retouch Varnish Question

[Richard Budig]

If I'm not mistaken, retouch varnish is about 10 per cent varnish, and ninety per cent turp. Thus, your problem may well not be a retouch varnish problem. It should have dried long ago. Retouch varnish, as I understand it, and as I use it, is for briefly bringing up all the values to the same degree of "juiciness" so that you can get started on that day's painting in correct values and colors.

That leaves the paint, itself. What paint is underneath? Some colors are notoriously slow driers . . . alizarin, cad yellow . . . I think. If you have some heavy passages of slow drying paint, I would suspect them, first.

The drying part of the problem may be resolved if you can't get up there for another couple of months. It may be dry by then. But as previously suggested, you may have to sand with a very light grit, and repaint a passage. But, do it lightly so that it dries.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Kim,

A while ago I tried to buy some W & N matte retouching varnish and all the stores were out of it. This was when I used to mix matte and gloss to get a satin finish. After asking a lot of questions I finally found out that all the matte retouching varnish had been sent back, apparently because it "went bad." When I asked what happened when it went bad, I was told by a couple of store personnel that it didn't dry properly. This could have been true only of the matte version. Does anyone know whether something similar happens to the gloss version? I would check with the company on how to remove it.

Alex