Varnishing Day

It takes 6 months to ensure an oil painting is fully dried which makes Varnishing Day very exciting for an artist. The process involves a lot of patience to get the varnish stirred without creating bubbles (this takes a good half an hour!) and a lot of pleasure when the painting is brought back to life. I have created some step by step videos to explain the process:

Step 1 - brush away the dust.

For this step, all you need is a super soft brush and a quiet, still room for the next 24 hours. Start by gently brushing left to right all the way across your painting. I like to start top left and work my way down to the bottom. And then brush up and down, again starting from top left and working across to the right. You could also use a microfibre cloth instead of a brush.

Step 2 - preparing the varnish.

If you’re using a mixed finish varnish (both satin and gloss), you’ll need to mix your varnish for an even finish.

You can see the separation of the liquids at the start of this reel - most of it is quite clear but the bit at the bottom is much thicker.

If you’re extremely patient, you can gently swirl the varnish in the bottle but you’ll be there for a very long time. Don’t be tempted to shake it though! This will mix your varnish but you’ll end up with lots of little bubbles which will also end up on your artwork.

A very simple trick is to place the unopened bottle into a small bowl of boiling water and leave it warm up for the next 20-30 minutes.

Step 2 ctd.

Now the varnish is nice and warm, it is much easier to mix.

Take the bottle out of the boiling water. You will notice that the thicker varnish at the bottom has loosened up.

Gently turn the bottle round and around until you can see it is fully mixed. Remember not to shake it - shaking causes bubbles!

This may take a while (you can see I have had to speed up the video for this part).

It is worth the wait though, as the end result is a fully mixed varnish and it’s ready to go.

Step 3 - let’s varnish!

Pour your mixed varnish into a clean glass bowl. I’ve repurposed a delicious GU dessert bowl for mine 😋!

Then, using a soft brush, dip into the varnish and wipe off any excess on the side of the bowl. Now work the brush across your painting from the top corner, going left to right until you reach the opposite corner at the bottom.

During this process you will most likely need to reload your brush with varnish and go over some strokes if there is too much or too little varnish.

Then, ‘lay off’ by brushing in the opposite direction from top to bottom, from one side to the other.

If you spot any hairs, dust or debris whilst varnishing, use tweezers to pick them out and then brush over that area again.

Finally, you may want to check the edges don’t have any drips and give them a quick brush if they do.