Help with glare (varnish)

[Zachary Thornton]

Hello everyone. I cover my paintings with a mixture of galkyd and OMS. This creates a nice even gloss and unifies the painting. (Is this considered a retouch varnish?)
However, I hate the fact that the painting, if not lit just so, is plagued by glare. This glare destroys the image. I'm going to try using gamblin Cold Wax Medium and see what that does. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks!

PS. I use a lot of darks and black and notice that the glare is seemingly worsened when the paint surface is uneven.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Zachary,

I am sure your problem is shared by a lot of artists. Personally, I prefer a satin finish--not too shiny, but with enough gloss to bring out the color and depth. My way is probably not for everyone, since I've noticed that many artists prefer a shinier finish. I use Soluvar (made by Liquitex), which comes in gloss and matte. I mix equal parts of gloss and matte, and dilute with real gum turpentine. (If you don't dilute it, it's too thick to brush on.)

[Richard Bingham]

Zachary, without inviting any "wars" over painting mediums, suffice to say that with the exception of properly oiling out sunk-in passages in a thoroughly dry painting, "overcoating" with any painting medium is inadvisable, and not the same thing as applying a "final varnish".

The purpose of varnishing a painting is to provide a protective barrier between the finished painting and environmental elements that will degrade it - dust, dirt, smoke, mild abrasion, etc. The archival intention is to be able to remove this protective coating at some point, along with embedded dirt, thus preserving the painting as it was when finished.

To that end, the traditional (at least for the last 150 years or so) approach has been to apply a soft resin varnish which remains soluble in its parent solvent. Damar is one, mastic is another. As mastic alone is more prone to yellowing or discoloring in time, damar has been preferred.

Final varnish is not diluted as a retouch varnish is, but generally is a saturated solution, usually a 5# cut. (five pounds of resin dissolved in a gallon of turpentine).

Properly varnishing a painting requires some experience and skill; the painting should be laid horizontal on a table, the varnish applied evenly, then manipulated to a desired lustre. I prefer a mix of damar and mastic (about 60/40) because the mixture is far easier to control than damar alone, and easily laid off with the brush to a less than high-gloss finish.

There are now final varnishes on the market compounded entirely of synthetics which promise to be an improvement over the natural resin varnishes. Gamvar is one which comes highly recommended by people I trust., but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet.

A parting thought - a painting should be thoroughly dry before applying the final varnish, and the state of dryness has less to do with specified time lapse than the nature of the paint films and ambient conditions. As a rule of thumb, usually six months to a year, though.

[Gary Hoff]

Originally Posted by Richard Bingham

:....a painting should be thoroughly dry before applying the final varnish, and the state of dryness has less to do with specified time lapse than the nature of the paint films and ambient conditions. As a rule of thumb, usually six months to a year, though.

I just read an interesting (and logical) passage in Carlson's book about landscape painting. He asserted, writing originally in the 1920s, that one should either varnish an oil painting right away, in the first month after it is complete, or after the requisite year. His logic is that if you varnish the painting within the month, "the varnish is more or less incorporated with the pigment underneath" and if you can't varnish early, you should varnish only in a year. The real danger of getting cracking is in varnishing a half-dry picture. It does make sense that the varnish (probably damar in Carlson's case) diluted with turp might do that kind of thing. According to him, he'd had no cracking following those rules.

[Richard Bingham]

That's correct, all respect due John Fabian . . . (one of my favorites!)

However, it's not really in the best interst of the painting to incorporate the "final varnish" into the actual painting, which will happen through solvent transfer when the painting is fresh. It is a way to turn out a painting in a completely presentable state, though.

[David Carroll]

I believe Carlson used copal varnish as his retouch. He also used it as a medium mixed with turps and sometimes added stand oil. It's been a while since I last read his wonderful guide to landscape painting. Great book though. Thanks for bringing it up Gary

Peace, Dave