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Originally Posted by Kimberly Dow
I have a painting from last March when it was particularly cold and the paint was taking forever to dry. I believe I put retouch on it too soon as there are still tacky areas - which of course now have dust and lint accumulated.
Any solutions or suggestions? Im thinking at this point it needs to be painted over.
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Kim,
If it's still tacky after several months, something is wrong. What brand of paints did you use on the parts that are still tacky? Sometimes there is a bad batch that dries poorly with some of these companies who use poppy oil or sunflower oil as binders. If that is what's behind it, I'd scrape out and repaint those sections, using linseed oil paints only.
And don't varnish when it's cold or damp, not even retouch. The best time to varnish is in the middle of a hot, dry day, at least six months after the last brush stroke is dry to the touch. Cold and/or damp poses the risk of water getting into the varnish, and that can cause several problems.
I would also try to determine what the binding oil was in the paints that didn't dry. I'll guess right now that it was
not linseed oil, but probably poppy oil, sunflower oil, or maybe safflower oil. I had some paints that didn't dry after something like twelve years on one of my test panels. I threw them out, and never used that brand again for anything I considered important. Sunflower oil and poppy oil do not dry well, so manufacturers who use them add driers to the paint to help them dry, but sometimes there is a bad batch that doesn't get enough drier. Linseed oil is the best binder for oil paints. Poppy and Sunflower are the worst.
Virgil Elliott