Gilded Once Again Part 2

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. The Gilded Age, at least for those with wealth, as demonstrated in this painting, was so much about showing off. Which maybe hasn't aged so well. But there are times when showing off is okay. Like with your website, of course. And with Squarespace, showing off has never been easier. With thousands of beautifully designed, ready-to-go templates, your website can be up and running in seconds. And if you want more than just beautiful design, Squarespace has a suite of powerful add-ons that will keep your business running smoothly. Like search engine optimization to find your audience. Or e-commerce solutions so you can sell to that audience. And email marketing campaigns to reach people where they are. Or online scheduling so they can reach you when they need. Integrated shipping so you can get products to your buyers. And a suite of social media tools to maximize your reach. 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. After a few days of being pressed under weights, and then under felt and weights, the canvas is now flat and smooth, and we can proceed with some of the structural repairs. Because that tear isn't just a tear, it's a gap, I have to fill it with something. I can't pull it closed because this isn't an instance where the canvas has shrunk, this is just lost canvas because of the past repair. So I've selected a piece of canvas from my stock, and I'm going to lay it underneath the original, and then take a pencil and begin tracing the void. This is going to enable me to transfer the area that I need to recreate onto the new piece of canvas. And it's really just a simple matter of tracing around the edges and trying to capture as much of the detail as possible. Now once I've gone around the entire perimeter and I'm satisfied, I can then begin cutting it out. And here I just use a plain old scissors and time to cut out the shape that I've just created. Yes, I have experimented with and thought about using a scanner and a laser cutter, but this is so fast and efficient, it's really no problem at all. Now if I had to do lots of these, then maybe it would be a different story, but for now, with one piece of canvas needing to be trimmed, I don't mind the work. Once it's all trimmed, I can set it into place and see how it fits. Now this fits pretty good, but I'm noticing one thing. The canvas is too thick. I chose one that I thought was going to be a good match, but ultimately once I got it in here, I'm not satisfied with it. So I'm choosing a thinner canvas and I'm going to redo it. Yeah, it's a bummer that I have to redo my work, but it's not the end of the world. And here you can see that not only is the fit even a little bit better, but now it's smooth and flush, so it's not going to stand proud once I've completed the bridging. Because this is a pretty big loss, I debated whether or not I would line the painting, but ultimately I didn't want to do that much invasive work. So I'm doing the inlay. But in order to make sure that this inlay stays put and doesn't tent up on the front, I'm doing a belt and suspenders approach. First, coating the entire area with a micro welding powder. This is just a plastic adhesive that when heated up will become a thermoplastic glue and it will bond the edges of the inlay to the edges of the canvas. This is just the first step. Once I've ironed it, I'll press it with weights. And then when I remove it, you can see everything is held in place pretty nicely. This might even be sufficient enough to hold this in place. But like I said, belt and suspenders. So I'm going to do a technique that I often do for tears and large holes that's called bridging. And that's where I take a piece of Belgian linen scrap and I cut off little strands of the Belgian linen. And then I'll apply some conservation grade adhesive and then lay these little strands down perpendicularly across the tear or the gap in this case. And I'll stagger each one of these little pieces of Belgian linen strands so that they don't create a crisp and hard edge. If they were all aligned perfectly, then the top and bottom or both ends of little strands could potentially telegraph to the front of the painting. Now I haven't seen that on a canvas this thick, but I don't want to take the chance. So the first one is oriented higher than the second one, which is low. And then the third one high, then the fourth one low, so on and so forth. And you can see that it creates a kind of undulating pattern. Now I'll lay all of these down with some dental tools. And then I'll go back and make sure that they're all oriented how I like. Apply a little bit more adhesive to make sure that all of them are bonded down to the painting. And then I'll press it. Once it's been pressed, it sits for a couple of days. And then you can see everything is how I like it. All secured into place, flat and smooth. Now the structural work doesn't stop there. I'm going to do a strip lining on this canvas because it's really big. And the tacking edges, while all present, have a myriad of issues. There are tears, there are holes, lots of staple holes and tack holes. And I'm just not confident that they're sufficient enough to hold the weight of this canvas. Now I could do a reinforcement with silk organza. And I debated doing that. But ultimately, I figured that, again, belt and suspenders. A little bit extra support wasn't going to hurt this painting or me. So after applying multiple strips of adhesive film onto the tacking edge, I will then come back with the frayed Belgian linen. Again, this fray is to help prevent a potential telegraphing of this crisp edge to the front of the painting, but also to create more surface area for the adhesive to bond to that strip lining. Using a weight with a little bit of wood on it, it's effectively called a clapper, I will follow the iron and press those areas that have been subjected to heat so that they don't distort. Once complete, I'm going to flip the painting over once again. And then I'm going to work on the front. This painting is actually pretty pliable. And so I don't need to use cardboards like I have in the past, where the painting's been super, super fragile. Now where that old repair was is a lot of loss. And before I can apply fill-in medium to that raw canvas, I need to prepare it with a gesso. And so wherever there's raw canvas, I'll apply this gesso medium. And you can see areas where the raw canvas has been retouched, indicating that maybe this tear was worked on in multiple passes. Ultimately, all of them being pretty lousy. The addition of this gesso will also help make sure that the edges of the two canvases match up and there's no gaps. Once that gesso is dry, I can come back with my fill-in medium and begin laying down a base layer of fill-in to recreate some of the ground that was lost and build up some of that texture. This painting does not have a lot of impasto. It has very, very little. So I don't need a ton of fill-in medium. And I'll work to make it relatively flat and smooth and then add some texture later on. I'll proceed around the entire canvas, filling in all of the little losses. And then we're on to stretching. I'm going to reuse the original stretcher because there's nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It's a little bit dirty, but I can clean that up. There's no reason to replace originals if they are able to be repaired. And that's one thing that I firmly believe in. It's not simply okay to replace it so that you have something that's easier to work with or something that can add to the expense for the customer. Not to mention, there are markings on the back of these stretchers that can be useful for future historians. And once they're gone, they are gone and never coming back. And I do not want that on my back. I'll transfer the painting over to the front of the studio and onto the stretcher. And I hold it like this because you can see there are no creases forming. That's pretty critical. I'll lay it down on the support and then I'll begin orienting this canvas on the stretcher to make sure it's sitting how I want. I'll work at each corner and each side, just making sure that it fits and that everything is squared up. And then, because this is a really large painting and it takes up most of the table, I'm going to be using a technique called spitting tacks, which is an old upholstery technique where you take a whole bunch of tacks, you stick them in your mouth, and then like a cartoon character, you spit them violently at the painting and hope that they land in the tacking edge, securing it to the stretcher. Actually, no, that's not how it works. You keep them in your cheek and you use your tongue to bring them to the front of your mouth. And then you use your magnetic tacking hammer to pull them out from between your lips and then tack them into place. And the reason we do this is because all the tacks are right there. You can see there's so much painting to work with that if I didn't have them, they'd be on the surface of the painting and that wouldn't be okay. So by spitting tacks, I can keep the materials close by and readily available. I'll work from the center out, ensuring that there are no ripples or waves in the canvas. I'll flip it, then do the other side, then flip it and do the other side, and so on and so forth until the painting is completely secured down onto the stretcher. And then it's time to remove the nails that I put into the support that kept it square so that it didn't distort while I was handling it, and then fold over and tack down the tacking edge. And because the original tacking edge was still present, much of my strip lining probably won't be present, except on the bottom edge where we had all of those losses. Though this is an adequate support, there's a big span in the middle, so I've decided to add a crossbar. I've fabricated it in my shop and I'm using my 3D printed crossbar mounts to hold it into place. This will ensure that on these really long edges, the canvas doesn't pull the stretcher support and cause it to bow, which can happen. We just don't want that. That would be a distortion and it would create ripples and waves in the center of the canvas. And then, of course, we would have to do ancillary treatments to compensate for those when we can get rid of them now, so why not? These supports accept keys, making this an actual stretcher. Unlike the other support that was on here, that crossbar rendered this stretcher a strainer. It couldn't be keyed out because that crossbar was nailed into place, and so the keys just couldn't move these edges. You can see, hammering in the keys opens up this joint just a little bit. And what is that? Maybe, I don't know, 3 64ths? That's enough to add tension to the entire canvas. Once I'm satisfied, I'll screw in the supports, and then I'll add the fishing line to hold all of the keys in place so that they don't get lost, or fall in between the canvas and the stretcher bar and create a bulge. The same goes with the keys that I created for the crossbar supports. Simply fishing line, a tack, a hammer, a scissors, and everything is secured in place. And then it's time to take the painting to the back and apply the first coating of synthetic resin, what I will call a saturation or isolation layer. And for this painting, it's necessary for a couple of reasons. One, there is a massive amount of fill-in on the surface, and that fill-in has a tendency to absorb the retouching paints and make a matte finish that can't be compensated with varnish. So I don't want to have that problem. But also, there are colors here that are so washed out and dry that I just can't see what they look like accurately. And if I retouch them according to what they look like now, my retouching colors will be washed out and dry. And then when I apply a varnish, you can see just how much those colors will change, and my retouching won't match anymore. So this helps me see what the colors truly look like, because this saturates them up and simulates what the final varnish will look like. Now, on to retouching. And this painting is big, so I have to spend half of my day lowering my easel and wondering if it's time to invest in a motorized one. Hmm, I'll put that on the list of rainy day projects. With the easel in place, I can now begin the retouching process. And while this is a massive amount of retouching, it's not particularly interesting. I'll be honest, this is not exciting retouching. If the face were missing, or the hands, or something with detail and focus, it would be much more interesting for me. Luckily for the owner of this painting, the losses here are in an area that's not all that interesting. But unfortunately for me, and, well, you folks, it's just a lot of browns, and greens, and blacks. But it still takes a lot of time, and a lot of passes and layers, to get something that looks acceptable. With all of the retouching complete, not only on the large area, but some of the smaller areas and chips as well, including the bottom edge, which was very unexciting. It was just blue. I'm now ready for final varnish. I'll make a pass over the painting with a brush, just to make sure there are no fuzzies, or other things that could get stuck in the varnish. And then I'll take a big fat brush, I'll charge it up with varnish, and I'll begin applying it. My preferred method of applying varnish is via brush, even on big paintings like this. The varnish has a pretty long open time, it doesn't dry very, very quickly, so there's plenty of time for me to spread it around, and get the effect that I like. If I need to, I can come back with a spray gun and spray it. But I think I can manage this size, and get a varnish that looks exquisite. I've done it a few, oh, 10,000 times. With all of the conservation work now complete, the painting can finally be viewed as Pauline Palmer intended, in all its resplendent glory. And the little painting can also be viewed in all of its glory. It, and the other markers of wealth from the Gilded Era, can now finally be seen, and understood, as symbols of prosperity. The delicacy with which the mother's hand drapes over her leg, and into the child's lap, and cradles the child's hand, can now finally be appreciated. Her expression is free from yellowed varnish, and all of the grime stuck in the craquelure. And the child's ennui is clearly visible, having to sit for this portrait. What's not visible, however, is the massive tear that was running through the middle of the painting, and all of the old work that covered it up. The colors are accurate, and the retouching, restraint. It just looks like the painting should, with no evidence of prior work. But the real test isn't looking at it head on. No, it's looking at it through a raking light. And here, well, once again, we can't see anything. The texture matches, and the tear is gone. Certainly a far cry from what we saw when the painting was on the hot table, and the quarter inch of white lead paint was protruding. The back of the painting was also cared for properly, with all of the old excessive work finally removed. Though the scars are visible, the repairs now are adequate and appropriate. No massive patches, no sloppy glue. Minimally invasive and strong, these repairs will last the test of time. And where there were inappropriate repairs, they have been removed to reveal, well, nothing warranting that level of invasive work. This painting now has work only where necessary. Crossbars were also installed to keep the stretchers stable, and to provide more tension so that the canvas lasts. While this painting was always grand, when it arrived at the studio, its truth was hidden beneath a discolored varnish, and all we could see was the massive tear. But properly conserved, the painting is gilded once again.