How to Protect & Preserve a landscape Painting

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Matt Cail, on behalf of Expert Village, and I'm going to show you today how to do a landscape painting. These are the last couple of details as we finish off our landscape painting. First off, signing you work. All of your work should have your signature on it. So we're going to take a really, really small, round brush, and you basically take dark color such as burnt umber or mars black, mixed with media, and write your name. Some people even treat it more like a pencil, by having their hand very, very close to the brush. And there you go, write your name with the brush, date it, and you're done signing it. But you're not quite done with you painting quite yet. You want to protect your painting. And there are a couple things you can do. You can get glossy varnish, and basically what that is something similar to this, and you basically coat your painting with it like a brushwork. This could make a very, very nice, glossy, shiny veneer, if that's what you're going for. Another thing you can use is sprays. These are things available in the stores and they will largely accomplish the same effect. A couple things about them though: Make sure your painting is dry. And I mean really dry. For an oil painting, that could be weeks. I've heard of some people who will wait literally two to three months before they will actually varnish or spray seal their painting. So make sure your painting is dry. Also, make sure that your area is very, very well ventilated. Some of this stuff isn't so good to breathe in. So make sure that you have adequate ventilation in your place. And what you're doing is protecting your painting. You're protecting it from two things. First off, you're protecting your painting from someone accidentally coming up and clawing it...something happening like someone dropping it, or scraping it up.... it will basically put a protective coat on there to prevent that kind of damage. Also, it will protect your painting to some degree ( a lot of these will ) from sunlight and aging and fading (yellowing) things that can happen to oils and other paints. The big thing to keep in mind though, is making sure that when you add it on there that you have a good thick coat, but you don't overdo it. And just that thereafter, make sure to store your painting in a relatively climate controlled area. It should not be an area where you have wide swings in temperature, otherwise your canvas could stretch, and that's not good. Another thing is this: never have a painting in a place where it's getting lots of direct sunlight on a regular basis. Every now and again is fine, but over time, even with protective varnishes, that could make the painting fade or otherwise damage your canvas."