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Tissue removal from oil paintings? Help!

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  • 02-09-2008 5:59pm
    #1
    MikeyNT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 173 ✭✭


    Hi Folks,

    We recently received 3 oil paintings from overseas from a painter who painted from digital photos we sent him.

    The trouble is he used tissue to cover each painting to protect them. I have removed 95% of the tissue as it only really stuck to the edges/perimiter and now all that's left are bits of tissue around the edges that are stuck on, I guess due to the pressure of the frame behind the canvass in transit.

    Is there a solution I could use to remove the remaining tissue that wouldn't damage the paintings? Maybe just water might be alright and a damp cloth?

    Any advice appreciated?


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    #2
    Arkana
    Registered Users Posts: 73 ✭✭Arkana


    Well - difficult to say without seeing the object. But, what I assume after reading your story (painted to order after photographs), is, that that guy simply did not wait long enough before he shipped the paintings. It is normal that oil (6-8 weeks) and acryl (4-6 weeks) take a long time to get dry and hard. It is not enough if it is surface dry because underneath then it is still soft and so can easily be formed.
    If that was/is the case, the damage is already done and a careful (!) removal would not make it worse, because the fabric then has already pressed a pattern into the surface. Water, whether warm or cold has absolutely no effect and would not help at all - it is no agent to react with oil or acryl. You could try to wet another clean cloth with white spirit or turpentine and carefully apply this to the stuck fabric, pull gently as long it is still wet. This might (!) work. Once you have remove the fabric and you see what I assumed (the fabric pattern on the surface), you can do the following: Apply four or five times more of the turpentine with careful padding to weaken up the surface, and then use a hard brush to re-apply the old brush structure. That's the best I can tell you.:rolleyes:


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    #3
    MikeyNT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 173 ✭✭MikeyNT


    Thanks for the info Arkana, although I did forge ahead in the meantime with a cloth and plain water which did remove the majority of the tissue. However there are still fragments of tissue remaining which look as if they've "fused" with the oil but they are not that unsightly so once I put frames on these I should be good enough.


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