Retouch Varnish Question

[Janel Maples]

Thank you for the warning, Peggy.

This may sound like a stupid question, but is this problem only for an oil primed support? You mention the "fix" by getting rid of the excess dried linseed oil in the pre-gessoed canvas but before I safely assume that this doesn't happen with acrylic primed I thought I should ask.

Thanks, for figuring this out for us, but sorry you had to find out the hard way. I guess a positive way to look at it is you probably have saved many future portraits because of it.

If that makes you feel any better.

??

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Since the problem is related to excess linseed oil, I would assume that it would not happen on an acrylic primed canvas.

I rarely get my life and painters knowledge the easy way, by others mistakes. Unfortunately, I seem to have made more than my share. As a teacher, I also get to experience all my students mistakes as well. We have some dillies!

Because of this, I've become an archivists dream. I don't mess with anything! I've become a by the book painter.

[Michele Rushworth]

If you buy a pre-gessoed canvas and you get the end of the roll, sometimes you can get a pooling of oiliness. It almost looks like big blotches of linseed oil have dripped on the canvas. It is impossible to see these oily areas until you have started the painting. They are visible because the paint dries extremely slowly and in a semi-oval pattern.

Do you recall the brand of canvas? Did it happen more than once? I use the oil primed Claessens and so far (knock on linen) haven't had this happen on any of the rolls I've bought.

[Kimberly Dow]

Since this was brought back up....

I think on the painting I originally started this thread about - that the cause was the paint brand, like Virgil suggested. I had some very very slow drying flake whites, several brands actually. Putting the retouch on top of it may have made it worse. Ive switched to Varsari Flake white now. It still does dry slowly, but it does dry.

And that painting is drying more and more with each week....so Im not going to have to repaint it - the client is fine with it. I may eventually need to sand it down a bit if there is too much dust on the surface. I'll cross that bridge later.

[Julie Deane]

I had a painting do this once. The paint was a slow drier apparently - I think it was a sky painted with a lot of some sort of white, so the retouch varnish impeded the drying. It took a long time, but it did eventually dry. Glad yours did too, Kim.

[Peggy Baumgaertner]

Do you recall the brand of canvas? Did it happen more than once? I use the oil primed Claessens and so far (knock on linen) haven't had this happen on any of the rolls I've bought..

Michele,

It was Fredrix brand, but I've seen it happen with other brands as well. It's a quality control thing..... And I've seen it happen on several different occasions.

[Steven Sweeney]

Speaking of retouch, Welcome back, Ms Emeritus!

Don't be a stranger. (Get your 2006 schedule online, I'm trying to send people your way.)