Blog

Looks can be deceiving! I’m still a blond from the front, but look what lurks under the surface! 

Due to the pandemic, I’m beginning to see exactly what lies under my blond veneer. What a shock! 

But hair isn’t the only thing that changes with age — your paintings might also be aging. 

Recently, as I rifled through every drawer, shelf and storage container in my house to prepare to move, I found a painting I did 50 years ago. It was a framed scene of mountains dotted with trees. A distant river snaked through it. The medium was charcoal.

Ironically, at that point in my life, “Stone Mountain” in Georgia — a huge, granite rock that had been dragged into the area by an iceberg eons ago — was the closest thing to a mountain I had seen.

But that was nothing like the mountain range in the painting that had hundreds of what I then called “Christmas trees“ that hopefully would never be cut down and decorated. As I examined it all these years later, I still loved the composition.

Suddenly, I noticed one corner of the frame was coming unhinged. And there were gaps in the back, exposing the contents within. I couldn’t resist: I needed to rescue the painting from it’s decaying frame. But as I carefully pulled the frame’s sides apart, the painting began to tear and crumble. In the end, after a few more minutes to reminisce, I sighed and dropped the frame, matting and painting into the waiting jaws of a cruel trash can.

Have you ever had a painting disintegrate? I hope not. 

This life lesson reminded me of how important materials and framing are to preserving paintings. Here are some tips to keep your trash cans available for trash — not artwork. Consider the following before you buy:

1) What medium was used for this painting? Some mediums do not require the protection of glass if they are adequately prepared. For instance:

* Acrylic paintings don’t need to be framed in glass. But ask if they are sprayed, brushed or sponged with a high-quality varnish to protect the surface from UV rays, dirt, dust, smoke and water damage.

* Pastel artwork needs glass as well as a mat or “spacers” to keep the pastel from touching and eventually adhering to the glass. Also, any little flakes of pastel that come off will fall behind the mat so they won’t be seen. 

I was shocked to find that a pastel work in my cabin the last time I took a cruise did not have a glass front. I gingery touched a spot that wouldn’t be noticed and the color came right off on my finger!

* Colored pencil artwork should be treated as the pastel works are: framed in glass with mats or spacers so they won’t stick to the glass.

2) What is the painting’s substrate? In other words, what is it painted on — e.g., paper, canvas, wood? Ask if that surface was prepared so the medium used will stay adhered to it 

     * If paper, was it archival/museum quality? My old charcoal rendering was on cheap drawing paper that had turned from white to yellow over the years. What did I know about such things that long ago? And, in my defense, many art materials that are archival quality now were not yet developed that long ago. (I’m really old! Check out that gray hair above.) 

     * If wood or canvas, was it made ready to accept and hold paint? For instance, the wood could be sanded and sealed before being painted, or the canvas might be coated with gesso to help the paint stick to it. 

Fun fact: I once sanded and added gesso to palm fronds. I didn’t want them to eventually decay after I painted beach and underwater scenes on them. 

3) What does the back of the painting look like?

     * Is it sealed well to protect the artwork from moisture that can cause mold?

     * If it has a mat, is it made of archival material?

     * Are there  little sticky “dots” stuck onto the corners to keep the painting’s frame away from the wall? That helps keep moisture from entering the frame and gradually causing the painting to decay. You can always add those dots yourself before you hang the artwork. They’re inexpensive and easy to find at hardware stores. 

This month’s blog is now a wrap - a tight one even with no glass or mat!