Warning! Don't use damar as a final picture varish

[Virgil Elliott]

Originally Posted by William Whitaker

Virgil,

Thanks so much for responding to my email and contributing to my post. Once again, I'm amazed by the effort and care you give to provide us good and useful information. Everybody who reads this post on damar varnish should copy your contribution and save it for reference.

All you folks out there in Oil Painting Land, Virgil really knows his stuff. Pay attention.

Bill,

Thanks for the vote of confidence. It seems every time I post here, I'm deluged with questions to answer. Once my book is published, I'll just recommend people buy that and find the answers there. Watson-Guptill has sent me a contract, and is scheduling it for release in April of 2007. Meanwhile, I have a lot of illustrations to do before my deadline, so I need to put more time into that until everything is as good as I can make it.

If you're ever in my neck of the woods, look me up.

Virgil

[Kimberly Dow]

Virgil,

A hearty congratulations! I'm so glad to hear the book is being published.

[Virgil Elliott]

Originally Posted by Anthony Emmolo

You guys are frightening me. I have been using retouch varnish almost each morning at the beginning of my painting day. It brings the freshness of the painting back to light. It is the only way that I can add new paint to the canvas. Without it, the fresh paint looks different than the paint that I applied the day before. Especially in the shadow areas which dry chalky. Then, I apply a thin layer of painting medium by Falens, which is the medium I use throughout the painting to loosen up my paints after squeezing them from the tubes. After that, I apply a final coat of Damar varnish and have never experienced cloudiness. My work is sold in galleries for the past four years, and I haven't received any phone calls about yellowing.

1- Am I using retouch varnish wrong? If so, how can I work with the chalkiness of a painting when I want to add new paint to the painting and cannot accurately see the values and temperature of chalky paint compared to fresh paint?
2- How long after use does the yellowing of Damar varnish begin?

Anthony,

You can accomplish the same thing by oiling out instead of using retouch varnish, but you might need to give the painting a bit more time to dry between sittings. A very thin scrub-in of linseed oil over the area to be repainted will do the trick. Wipe off as much of it as will come off after you've scrubbed it on, before you paint into it. What remains is all that is needed. The chalky look you mention might be due to the colors you've chosen. Umbers are particularly bad in that way, burnt umber especially. I very seldom use burnt umber any more, for that reason mainly.

You can do many things wrong and not see the consequences for fifty or more years. That doesn't mean they aren't going to happen. Look to the conservation field to get an idea what holds up and what causes problems.

Virgil Elliott