Carol L. Douglas: Nudes and Other Work
Gallery Salon and Spa,
780 University Avenue, Rochester
Opening Saturday, September 1, 2012
6 PM-10 PM
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| Isn't this a happy vision? A whole bunch of paintings varnished and drying. I wish I had a spot for them in the shade, but will put them away before I go out this afternoon to teach. |
I’m prepping work for a show this week, at Gallery Salon and
Spa. My neighbor stopped by yesterday, when I was covered in sawdust. She said,
“Boy, the life of an artist is really glamorous, isn’t it?”
A few weeks ago, Erika Sorbello-Schramm stopped by my house
and selected work for the show. This is the most interesting part of the
process for me, since curators seldom see my work the way I do. We agreed that
this show would include some of the nudes I’ve been working on for the past several
years, which meant they needed varnishing and framing.
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| And frames for same, awaiting their paintings. |
To look its best, an oil painting should be finished with a
conservation-grade varnish after it’s had a year or so for the paint to fully
cure and oxidize. The goals are protection and reversibility (because we start
with the presumption that we’ve created a masterpiece which will need future
conservation work).
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| Clamped with double ratchet tie-downs. |
Like every artist I know, I’m a tinkerer. So I cut
Winsor-Newton’s matte conservation varnish with a small amount of their gloss
varnish, giving me a slightly satin finish. I warm the matte varnish in hot
water so the beeswax in it dissolves… easy on a hot August day.
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| Ratchet gives precise tightening. |
I love making frames. Light frames hold together easily with
glue; heavier frames sometimes need reinforcement. I have long coveted a biscuit
joiner, and went out last week to buy one. However, a clerk at the local
woodworking store talked me out of it, encouraging me to buy a pricey drill jig
instead. He showed me a video of it being used to join miters, and my
resistance was overcome. However, my
intuition was correct; the bit skips on hardwood mitered corners.
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| It's very easy to ding the corners. |
I did meet a new glue at my local hardware store, and it may
obviate the need for a mechanical joiner. It’s Titebond Molding and Trim Glue.
It stays “open” long enough that one can reposition the joins without
panicking, but it only needs to be clamped for about half an hour (is fully dry
after 24 hours). That makes mass-producing frames much easier.
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| The glue. |
I have about four
different corner-clamp systems, but I ended up using ratchet tie-downs for this
because of the size of the frames. Honestly, they work as well as anything, and
cost about a fraction of what corner clamps usually run.
Tomorrow I’ll insert the paintings into their frames and
package them for delivery. And then package myself for the glamorous life of an
artist.
