Art conservation/restoration project Feb 2026

 

My latest Art conservation/restoration project with Gallery Tresco Isles of Scilly. I had 9 paintings to work on, mainly to check on the 5 large seascape commission paintings I did in 2010 for the Sea Gardens swimming pool, and 1 large seascape for the spa complex and three other paintings that needed varying ammounts of repairs. I had two weeks based on Tresco for this. The swimming pool and spa complex paintings all needed careful cleaning and the staples holding the canvas to the stretchers all had to be replaced ….. some had literally turned into rusty dust in the humid chlorinated environment of the swimming pool. Due to my choice of using Michael Hardings V2 double retified beeswax and genuine portuguese turpentine based matte varnish the painting had no issues regarding degradation of the paint or colour. However on three of these paintings there was impact damage that needed to be repaired and restored. I am not going into details but I do have some images …..

Typically the build up of salts condencing out of the atmosphere and splashes from the pool leave a coating of salts accross the painting. In the following image you can see the white residue from the splashes coating the painting. This was apparent on all 6 paintings andrequired cleaning and checking.

 

Spa Complex painting

 

 

 

Sea Gardens Swimming Pool paintings

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following is a close up of the impact damage that needed repairing. The damage is right on the inner edge of the stretcher bar.  I decided to remove the painting from the stretcher to repair this.