Improving with age

Do you remember, gentle reader (or am I imagining it.... quite possible) that a goodish while ago I asked oil painters here if they noticed their pictures actually improving with age? Well, I've kept a fair few oils - you COULD translate this as saying I haven't been able to sell them, if you must - and I think my provisional answer to my own question is "Yes". Over time, as the paint cures, and to some extent shrinks and settles, several of mine seem to have aged rather well - even definition seems clearer, and while this may be partly down to having my cataract corrected, I think it also has to do with something inherent to the medium: that when oil paint is still wet, and in the process of curing, there is oil on the surface, in the paint, that only very gradually hardens and sets. This of course is why it's such a very bad idea to varnish a picture before it's at least 8 months old, and preferably older. The paint is still moving at that stage - the varnish won't - the tension between the two, especially on a flexible surface, can pull the paint film apart, and you get crazing and cracking. That being the case, it's not really surprising if images become more clear and nearer to one's intention when painting them. Oil paint is a live thing - unlike my acrylics, none of which (some dating back some 50 years, seem to have changed in any way at all. Whether this means there's hope for some of my frankly bad paintings is another matter altogether - some of them are beyond improvement in the worst possible way: and I hide them. But I'm now convinced that oil paintings not only age, but mature - and find this an oddly pleasing thought.

Well if the painting is damaged anyway, you'll lose nothing by restoring it. Either it'll work or it won't. Just make sure it's dry, and clean, before applying any more paint. Interesting that it sustained damage in this particular way, though - there's so much variation in the rate of decay of oil paintings, depending not only on what caused it but what mediums (oils, spirits) you were using with the paint, and what the paint actually contained. I don't suppose you'll remember after all these years, but i wonder if you used a lead white - which can do all sorts of strange things but is essentially extremely durable - or perhaps a Zinc - which is peculiarly unpredictable, but has delaminating tendencies in underlayers..... Anyway, would you rather attempt restoration , or have another crack at the painting on a nice new board? I don't know what I'd do - would depend a lot on the state of the existing painting. Perhaps the wife would pose for you - I see the scene now: "Petal, I'm going to paint you in the nude": - "Don't be silly, Lew, put your clothes back on and stop mucking about!"

Sylvia and Pat - you could well be right; one can't be sure. But I always photograph my paintings, so can see (up to a point) how they might have changed. Even then of course, you can't get over the subjective element - such is the nature of the human mind and eyesight. But there does seem to be what I could only describe as a "settling" with oil paintings - especially if the paint was thick (and I have been known to lay it on with a trowel).