painting varnish

Should I varnish my paint? … What's the indicate in doing and so?

Many of my students take asked near pigment varnishes. I will explain the reasons for using a varnish, some good practices to base your work on and than you can decide for yourself if varnishing seems like a good option for you. If you are newer to painting, a varnish is an actress layer that goes on last, it is practical over the completed painting and therefore must exist articulate. Varnishes come in glossy versions, matte or anywhere in betwixt.

There are 3 benefits to varnishing a painting:

  • Varnish helps protect the painting underneath
  • Varnish unifies the final surface sheen
  • Varnish saturates the colors beneath

Protection:

All paintings are susceptible to the damages acquired past natural and sometimes not and so natural elements over fourth dimension. These forces tin human action rapidly such every bit in the instance of a sharp object scratching across the painting'south surface. Forces can likewise inflict their damages slowly such as in the case of dust, dirt, and fume build-up on the painting's surface and the dissentious effects of prolonged light exposure in general. A varnish adds an extra barrier, almost like an insurance policy that protects the painting below it. If ane inadvertently scratches the painting, it is the varnish that is damaged and non the painting itself. When dirt, soot, and other particles collect or even bail with the surface of the painting, they are doing so to the varnish, non the paint beneath it. If applied correctly using the correct type of varnish, this varnish can eventually exist removed and reapplied revealing a like-new painted each time!

Unification:

Whatever painter of oils or even acrylics can tell you lot that certain paints take more sheens than others. Because all pigments take their own unique set of properties they are all used in varying amounts in each tube of pigment. Sometimes things are added to the paint to stabilize the blend, and often unlike amounts of the vehicle (oil or acrylic polymer) are used. This ultimately creates a sheen, or glossiness disparity betwixt the different tubes of paints when used. How yous thin your colors and doctor them upward using various mediums as well affects the final outcome. A finished painting with a high caste of sheen disparity can be distracting to viewers. A varnish can unify the entire painting's surface past making the unabridged painting the same caliber of glossiness. The artist tin chose to make the painting appear to accept a near-matte stop, extremely sleeky, or somewhere in the centre.

Saturation:

A glossy varnish restores saturation to the colored areas of paint that lay beneath it. Oft artists create a painting and formulate their judgments regarding color, based upon the wet paint they are using at that fourth dimension. Once the pigment dries it can look different than the artist had intended. Leaving the studio happy, painters sometimes arrive the next day, after the paint has stale, thinking "that area looked meliorate yesterday". Many artists refer to their color as condign "expressionless" or "lifeless" especially the earth tones they use, such as the siennas, umbers, and ochres. If you would like to add some saturation to your colors and make your painting look the fashion it did while it was wet with paint, a varnish is your answer.

What to do?

Then, you have completed a painting…do yous varnish information technology and if so what level of gloss do you lot utilise? It's actually upwardly to you; nosotros have covered the benefits of varnishing, let us now discuss some caveats.

The glossier the varnish the more it will saturate the colors beneath it but, the trade off is a express viewing angle of the painting. Paintings with sleeky varnishes have to be placed on a wall with proper lighting or else they may exhibit distracting glares from potent direct lighting.

The all-time way to view a painting beneath a sleeky varnish is directly in front of it with much indirect lite. Spot lights aimed at the painting will yield the worst glares. Your painting must be completely dry in order for you to properly add a varnish; otherwise you risk the varnish really becoming permanently role of the paint beneath information technology. If this happens, when the varnish is removed for cleaning in decades to come, some of the actual painting may be removed and non just the varnish. With some oil paintings you should await months before you lot varnish, assuasive plenty of time for the oil to dry out.

I would like to conclude with a few last thoughts on choosing a varnish. In my feel, paintings with deeper tones, such as ones that utilize many dark browns benefit the most from using a varnish as it will bring out their warmth, particularly if the painting has been created with layers of glaze.

Call back twice earlier using a glossy varnish on a painting with a heavy impasto. This heavy texture in the paint will exist sure to bear witness distracting, spotty, glares under whatever type of lighting. Always follow the number one rule of art conservators: what ever you do to preserve and protect a painting must exist reversible.

Only utilise varnishes intended for paintings and the varnish should be able to be removed with some kind of a solvent later on.