Varnishing

cold & rainy

I varnish every painting with damar varnish.  Here are my materials in the bag are damar crystals, I put them in a jar and pour turpentine over it, then leave it for a few days. (the jar on the left)  Sorry not to include this step, you may have to shake the jar every so often....

Here I'm filtering the solution to get the impurities.

This is naturally in the crystals.

I'm putting more Turpentine into the dilution, because it felt too thick,  I'm just going on experience with this, the thicker the mix, the thicker it will be on the surface on the paint.

I love the smell of turpentine.

This is why I varnish, notice the black, and what it looks like before and after varnishing.

I use a brush, and check to make sure I got in uniformly applied.

I varnish the month's work, all except one that had a huge glob of not yet dried white paint.

Everything needs to be dried to the touch, before it's varnished, according to John Carlson if you varnish early the paint will dry with the varnish.

Yes this bench has all the carpentry stuff  I've needed over the years and it's a chaotic mess, but that's my life.

Here is a painting I did on  a piece of primed canvas, not preferred but it was all I had that day.

I'm going to glue it down to a panel, the glue will be spread out evenly over the surface before I lay down the canvas.

Then put a piece of cardboard, then another stiffer board and then weight on that.  I'll let it dry like this, then varnish it later.