DAMAGED PAINTINGS

Have you ever had an accident where your painting was so damaged that you didn’t know what to do with it?

Well it all depends on the situation. Palette knives are very sharp and sometimes if you are too energetic you can easily cut the canvas. Painting on canvas is my area of expertise and here are some solutions.

If you are lucky and the cut is not in a crucial part of the painting there is an option to take it off the frame and stretch the canvas again on smaller stretcher bars. This is what I did recently with one of my paintings which I named Amorous Rays.

If the painting is very precious to you and the cut is somewhere crucial, you can glue a piece of canvas underneath (I would use unprimed canvas and PVA glue) and then carefully touch up that spot. In museums they would paste canvas on the top of another stretched canvas. I would not advise you to sell that painting but if it is that good you can always make a print of it and sell that instead.

I had several pieces where I glued a piece of polished stone, of similar colour, into the hole. Be creative! This is what I did with my painting Gentle Goddess.

I have seen paintings where the canvas was cut and then roughly stitched creating an interesting piece of work. I could not say whether that has happened by accident or intention. Who can say it is wrong in this age of modern art. You can even create a set of paintings that way.

Happy painting!

Amorous Rays, 2013, oil on canvas, 92 X 76 cm (original size was 101 X 76 cm)