From Ruff to Refined Part 1

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores, to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Sometimes, a rough first impression can lead to something altogether refined, something completely impossible to imagine upon first glance. This portrait of a young woman will no doubt be something spectacular once conserved. The beautiful and delicate lacework, executed by an extreme talent, indicative of the sitter's wealth and place in society. The gold-threaded clothing, delicately embroidered and captured in paint. The pearls, capturing the light leading down to the jewelry, that's no doubt a statement. But unfortunately, this piece has suffered at the hands of a previous conservation. The tacking edges are gone, there's excessive fill-in, it's been lined and stretched to an inadequate support. The frame has covered too much of the painting and left marks on the surface. And there is a large hole right in the center of the painting, with poor fill-in and lousy retouching. Upon first glance, we know that this will be a glorious painting, but right now, it's a far ways away. Though unsigned, undated and untitled, this portrait is not completely lost to history. If we take a look at the painting itself, we may discover clues about who she was, or at least who she wanted to be. For portraits do not just document the sitter's likeness, they can telegraph a story about the person, their wealth, power, integrity and more. Though not always completely factual. Of particular note is the collar, or ruff, that she's wearing. While a functional piece of clothing, initially meant to keep gowns clean, ruffs became a fashion statement in and of themselves, growing and becoming more elaborate, establishing wealth and societal status. This more lacy ruff is clearly a nod to the elaborate and trend-setting portraits of Elizabeth I. In addition, the bluish tint often seen in the ruff was meant to make the sitter look paler, and therefore of a higher social status. This particular portrait would have been earlier in the Elizabethan period, likely dating it after 1585, when the Queen's ruff changed and no doubt set off a sartorial scramble. Though before the 1590s, when the fashion had turned to lower necklines and open ruff. The jewelry tells us a story as well. The presence of pearls in her necklace and earring were not only meant as another nod to her wealth, but also to her purity or chastity. Surprisingly though, this is a cropped and relatively small portrait, and one that's unsigned, leading us to wonder if perhaps the cost of hiring a known artist or commissioning a full-sized portrait was beyond her means. That maybe this portrait was more aspirational than accurate. Regardless, it's a stunning portrait that now must be taken from ruff to refined. Quite the history lesson, huh? 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And Squarespace wants you to focus on your passion, not web design. So they have a whole section of guides and tutorials and an online help form for if you need a little assistance. Or you can speak to a real live person. So head over to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, go to Squarespace.com slash Baumgartner to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Rather than pulling out each and every one of these tacks, which are all rusted in place and inevitably will put up quite a fight, I can take my knife and simply cut along the lining canvas into the stretcher and separate it that way. This is not possible when the painting has tacking edges or when the support is going to be saved. But because this support and the lining canvas are not going to be reused, I don't need to take care in preserving them. Once I've cut through on all four sides, I can just go through and make sure that there are no little errant threads that are still hanging on that would present a problem when I do try to lift this painting off. Once I have separated the painting from the support, well, that's the last we're gonna see of this support, because as I mentioned, it's going to be replaced with a proper keyable wooden stretcher. The next step is removing the lining canvas from the painting. Oftentimes, when the paint layer is unstable or particularly fragile, I will face the painting with Japanese paper and fish gelatin. But in this case, the paint is well bonded to the canvas and relatively stable. Other times, I may choose to face the painting when I am going to employ water or solvent in the removal of either the lining canvas or the adhesive. But in this case, I don't need that. The adhesive has dried out and failed and is allowing me to pull up this canvas with relative ease. It's certainly not the easiest, but it is far from the most difficult. And as long as I work carefully and slowly, going methodically, inch by inch, I can remove this canvas without putting too much stress on the painting. And so the facing procedure isn't necessary. And if it's not necessary, I'm not going to employ it. As I work to remove this lining canvas, I'm noticing that there is a major hole in the center of the painting and that this is likely why the painting was lined. We will have to examine and determine whether or not this can be fixed locally or if an additional lining will be required. That remains to be seen. Eventually, however, the lining canvas does come up. And then we're faced with removing all of the glue residue. Oftentimes I will employ solvent or water or solvent gel or water gel to remove this old adhesive. But in this case, because it is so brittle, I can remove it with a dry scalpel, just by scraping. And the benefit here is that I'm not subjecting the painting to any water or solvents, that the canvas isn't going to swell and then contract, as it does when exposed to moisture. And that's going to put less stress on the paint layer. The adhesive layer here was thin to begin with. And because it's so brittle and dried out, I can simply take my blade and drag it along the surface and the blunt edge will apply enough tension and force on that brittle glue to force it off. I'm using the edge of the blade in a dragging or pulling motion as opposed to scraping because I don't want to slice any of this glue off. I just want the friction of the blade passing over it to break its bond with the canvas nap. After years and years and years of scraping, this motion has become automatic. And through slight modulations in the way that I'm holding the blade, moving my elbow, or positioning my body over the canvas, I can change the way that the blade drags across the canvas and the effect that it has when trying to remove that old adhesive. When I come to the old filled in hole, well, I'm simply going to work my way across it and remove all of this what appears to be paint. No canvas was used to inlay here, just paint. And that's one of the reasons why it needs to go. This is not a structural repair. By simply forcing a little pressure on this paint, it cracks and flakes right off. Sometimes mediocre work is actually easier to remove. Now in addition to that major hole in the center, there is tons of fill-in along the edges where, again, no canvas was used as an inlay, just fill-in medium. And this all eventually cracks and breaks because the expansion and contraction rates of this fill-in medium and the canvas are different. And where they're bonded together, it yields. Once the scraping is all complete, I'll take a bristle brush and begin removing as much of the rabbit skin glue as I can. Sometimes I'll brush it off, and sometimes I'll use a vacuum, and sometimes I'll do both, as in this case. With the painting free of the lining and the adhesive, I can take it over to the hot table and transfer it for a treatment to remove all of the planar distortions. The cotton blotter paper on the hot table has been dampened and then covered with a nylon release film that will allow the moisture and air to pass through, but prevent any of the glue residue from bonding this canvas to the blotter paper, which would not be good. Once the painting has been brought up to temperature, I'll use the vacuum pump to remove the air and to apply even pressure downward. After a few hours of cooling, I can remove the painting from this mylar envelope and then transfer it over to the table behind me, where it will be pressed for a few days to remove any residual moisture and to acclimatize to my studio. As you can see, the painting did not stick to anything. Were this green nylon layer not here, well that blotter paper would have been well bonded to the canvas. I'll transfer the painting with the blotter paper over to the table, and I'll keep the blotter paper because it will act as a buffer not only on the of these drywall sheets, but also help slow down the rate of moisture withdrawal. I don't want to shock this painting. On top of the face, a piece of wool felt, and then a couple more sheets of drywall, and then a couple of heavy weights, and this painting can rest for a few days. Though there is a lot of work yet to be done before the painting can be married to its new keyable wooden support, I do need to assemble this support and use it as a guide for some of the next steps. This is the final dimension that the painting will be once it's stretched, and I've decided that this painting is going to need an interleaved lining, not only because of that large hole, but because I found some other areas where there were tears. And because of the number of compromises to the structure, I've decided to add this piece of PET film to act as an additional layer of support. This will not only immobilize the painting from humidity changes, but it will also add some rigidity so that the canvas is better protected against any future movement or incidental contact. Now I've cut this PET film about a 16th of an inch on each edge smaller than the stretcher, and you'll see why in just a minute. After letting the painting rest for a few days, I can come back and remove it from the weights, and we can see it's nice and flat, which is precisely what we wanted and why it was put under weight. I'm going to bring this painting over to the front and lay it down atop the piece of PET film, and just double check that I've got the tiniest amount of overhang of the canvas over the PET film. The PET film is not flexible, and so it needs to be smaller than the size of the stretcher, but not too small, otherwise we'll see a ridge on the face of the painting. Where there are areas of lost canvas, I'm not simply content filling it in with fill-in medium. I'm going to use some of my old canvas stock to create inlays. But before I can decide on a canvas stock, I need to check which one is close enough in thickness to match. I don't want it exactly the same thickness, just a tiny little bit thinner, so there's enough area for the fill-in medium to go on top of this canvas. I'll cut a whole bunch of little strips and pieces and loosely fit them where they're going to be needed. And then I'll start tracing out all of these inlays. I want the inlays to fit as tightly as possible to the voids. And because I can't cut away any of the original canvas, I need to trace the opening onto the inlay canvas. And I do that with a pencil. I'm also doing it on top of the mylar film so I know where to end the inlay. I don't want it extending down to the tacking edges. I'll cut them out with a pair of scissors and then test fit them to see how I like it. If it's a nice snug fit, this one is done, and I can move on to the next. This is a slow procedure, and yes, I have investigated other techniques that maybe would speed it up. But after auditing them, really, there is no faster way. Using a CNC cutter would limit my choice in materials and require me to do a whole bunch of preparatory work to set the machine up. So sometimes the analog way is just faster. Once all of these little inlays are cut, I can then flip over the canvas and start putting them in place. I'm going to try to keep them aligned and where they belong so that I don't lose any of these things and have to start over again. That's a hard lesson that I've learned many times before, and don't need to learn again. Once the canvas is flipped, I can now place all of these puzzle pieces back where they belong and start preparing for securing them in place. Because as you can see, they're happily wandering all over the place, and that's not going to cut it when I do the interleaved lining. Like a glove. In order to keep all of these little pieces of canvas in place, I now am turning to washi kozo and a bin of scraps that I keep. I'll tear these little scraps to fit over the inlays, and then I'll use some conservation adhesive that is also flexible and doesn't shrink when it dries, and is also reversible, to hold all of these in place. A little bit of adhesive on both sides ensures that this kozo bonds really well and that there aren't any areas of bulging or folds. Again, a slow procedure, but sometimes that's the way it has to be done. In fact, slowing down often results in a better product. So sometimes speed isn't your friend, but your enemy. Now even though this adhesive doesn't shrink when it dries, I'm still going to put some felt and weights down to make sure that the original canvas doesn't distort, because I did all that work to get it flat in the first hot table treatment. After drying for a day, I can remove all of these weights and this felt and this release film. I can check on the work. Looks good. So now it's time to start preparing for the interleaved lining. In order to bond this original canvas to this PET film and the PET film to a new piece of canvas, I need an adhesive, and I will turn to the adhesive that I commonly use for this treatment. It is a thermoplastic solvent and heat activated adhesive. I'll heat it up, thin it out to the desired consistency, roll it on, allow the solvent to evaporate, leaving behind an even layer of adhesive. Once the adhesive is dry, I can begin trimming off the flat spun nylon gossamer that I bonded to the canvas, and I use this not only to make up the difference between the texture of the smooth PET film and the rough canvas, but also in 25 plus years of doing these interleaved linings, I have found better success with it than without, so I continue to use it. But I want to trim off the excess, because I don't want it to look sloppy when the painting is bonded to the new piece of Belgian linen canvas, which I will now begin trimming. I cut it oversized because it's always easier to trim off the excess afterwards than it is to try to get it right here. In addition, I'll cut some adhesive film, which is made from the same adhesive that I rolled onto the back of the canvas, and this will get bonded to the new canvas. Using my iron, I can simply tack it down, and following it with my weighted clapper, I can ensure that this piece of canvas doesn't warp or wrinkle or distort in any way that would be problematic for the lining process. It may seem simple, but having all of your materials cooperate from the outset is a really easy way to avoid complications. And now I can begin to assemble the lining sandwich. Onto the back of the painting goes the interleave, and again, I will take care to make sure that it is just a sixteenth of an inch or so shy of the edges. Once it's in place, I will iron it down just on the edges where the new inlays are because I can subject them to heat, and I'll put a little piece of release film on top so that nothing gets stuck. These are just meant to tack it in place so that it doesn't shift while I'm handling or moving the painting. Once I've checked that everything is where I want it, again, I will go to the corners where the inlays are, and I will tack it down just to make sure that it doesn't move. With the four corners tacked, we can return to the hot table to execute the interleaved lining process. And this is a procedure that just isn't possible without a heated vacuum table. It can be tried with an iron, but the irregular application of heat will always result in distortions, whereas the hot table prevents those because not only is the heat and pressure uniformly applied, it's uniformly reversed during the cooling process. Once the table is up to temperature, I can extract all of the air which applies the pressure, adjust that pressure with my little gauge, and then let the painting do its thing. I'm going to use a balsa wood brayer here to rub over the areas of the inlay just to make sure they're sitting flat. The pressure is not so heavy that it's going to force any areas flat, so I need to take a little care to do it myself. Now before I start the cleaning process, I want to take some care to keep things clean. This canvas looks really good and I want to keep it looking good, so I'm going to lay down a couple of strips of blue painter's tape to keep that edge clean because the cleaning process is not clean. Using a hand-rolled swab and a solvent mixture that I made earlier based on my initial testing of this painting when I examined it, I have now begun to soften up this oxidized varnish. The solvent softens it up and then the swab absorbs it, lifting it off of the surface of And man, is this going to be a different painting. This varnish is incredibly yellowed. It has been around for a long time, it is probably of low quality, and the thickness has amplified just how yellow it appears. But as I start to lift it off, we can see what lies beneath is really truly something to behold. And if the rest of the painting cleans up like just this corner does, wow, I think it's going to be an incredible change. In addition to revealing all of the beautiful colors, removing the varnish reveals the texture of the painting and the canvas. It's so thick that the painting is smooth and devoid of the subtle impasto flourishes that the artist used to do things like create highlights on the jewels. And those matter. Not only do we want to see the thickness of the paint, but when it is standing proud of the surface, it will catch the light, thus giving it a highlight that otherwise can't be seen when this thick varnish flattens take a break, regroup, and prepare for the rest of the cleaning, the retouching, and the varnishing, which no doubt will be well worth the wait.