The Importance of archival materials for art and framing

The Importance of Archival Materials:  Part 2
     by Susan Avis Murphy

      Do you know what can ruin your appreciation of an artwork after a few years?    Creeping decomposition…   I have been working in the art and framing business now for about 35 years, and I could tell you some horror stories!  In the last article in this series, I told you about the flowers that faded away completely during just two years in a painting a customer told me his mother once bought!  That was an issue of lightfastness of the pigments (link to article on lightfastness).   This article is going to be about the integrity of the materials the paint is put on and the framing materials that surround the painting.

     “Creeping decomposition” sounds creepy, doesn’t it?  Decay of a painting and its framing can start occurring immediately and become apparent in about five years.  What are the chief culprits and monsters of this decrepit situation?

·      Acid.  Acid found naturally in wood pulp materials, such as cheaper art papers and cheap matboard, will eventually cause those materials to become yellow and brittle.

·      Mold.  Mold present before framing can grow and spot the surfaces if the picture is stored in a humid environment.

·      Insects.  Tiny insects such as spider mites like to creep into narrow spaces and eventually stain the surface of the mat and picture.

·      Pollution.  Especially smoke, such as cigarette smoke will eventually dirty the surface of an exposed oil or acrylic painting

·      Dirt.  Dirt can somehow get under the glass of a painting—hard to believe but true!

·      Humidity.  Humidity is one of the main culprits and can cause warping and buckling of the painted surface and mat.

·      Heat and dryness.  Heat and excessive dryness can cause the glue to fail in the joints of the frame.  Ever see a frame whose corners are coming apart?  The glue has failed and hopefully the frame is hanging together by virtue of its joining hardware!

     Let’s take these monsters one at a time and see how they can be defeated!  In this article we will discuss acid, and in future articles we will tackle the other creeps!

·      Acid. 

o    Acid found naturally in wood pulp materials, such as cheaper art papers and cheap matboard, will eventually cause those materials to become yellow and brittle.  Works of art done on paper are very vulnerable to this if the paper is made of wood pulp, such as cheap drawing papers (newsprint used for practice, for example) and cheap watercolor paper.  Paintings and drawings done early in an artist’s career are often on these surfaces.  Not much can be done for these papers after the fact.  There is a product called “Archival Mist” that is sold, and purportedly can stop the effects of acid (it contains an alkaline buffer).  It is very expensive and I don’t know how well it works, but am doubtful.  The best paper for art is “rag” paper, made from 100% cotton (I suppose it used to be rags!).  This contains no acid and should last for hundreds of years under good conservation framing.  All the better and best drawing and watercolor papers are rag papers.  I use mostly Arches watercolor paper, which has a 400 year history and is extremely durable.

o    As for matboard, this is another problem in preserving the integrity of the artwork.  Cheap, “decorator” matboard is a hazard to your artwork because acid from the matboard can creep into the edge of the art.  These matboards are made from wood pulp that has been neutralized with a calcium carbonate buffer, but eventally the effect of the buffer wears off.  Better to use either “alpha cellulose” matboard or rag mat board.  Alpha cellulose mat board is made from virgin alpha cellulose wood pulp that has been chemically treated to remove all traces of acid and lignins.  Bainbridge Artcare® and Cresent Select® are two brands of alpha cellulose matboard.

o    Backing board can create even worse problems than matboard!  Plain cardboard or Masonite should never be placed behind an artwork permanently!  These materials are very acidic and acid will leach into the paper artwork, eventually discoloring it and making it so brittle it can crumble.  The best practice is to use acid-free foamcore board behind an artwork.

Here are some photographs of a painting we recently re-framed here at ARThouse.  I show you these as an example of the terrible damage acid can do to framing.  Luckily the painting was done on a decent piece of rag watercolor paper, so it remained intact, although was someone discolored.  The painting and framing was done in 1960.

Figure 1 shows the 50 year old watercolor with its original mat.  The glass was incredibly dirty and had been removed before this photo was taken.  The glass was a heavy window-type glass and had to be discarded.   Here you can see the yellowing and acid burn of the matboard.  The inside edges had turned dark brown (a sure sign of acidity).  The matboard was brittle and crumbling by this time.

Figure 1

 Figure 2  shows the back side with its paper dust cover and brown package tape crumbling away.  The tape flaked off, but the gray paper wasn’t too bad.  Today we would use an acid free backing paper so that it retains its integrity and is less likely to rip or puncture with time. 

Figure 2

 Figure 3  shows the corrugated cardboard backing board that had been used behind the artwork.  Wow, we certainly would never do this today!!  Corrugated cardboard is a terribly acidic material.  Today we would use an acid-free foam core board.  Probably some of the discoloration of the mat and painting was due to this cardboard.

Figure 3

  Figure 4  shows the painting as it is taped into the back of the mat.  Here we see a lot of “no-no’s”.  The painting has been taped all the way around, which is a bad idea because it does not allow for expansion and contraction of the paper artwork due to humidity changes.  It is a better practice to tape it only at the top.  Secondly the tape was extremely brittle and flaked off because, although plastic, it was not acid-free.  Today we would use either linen tape or an archival acid-free plastic framers tape.  

Figure 4

Figure 5 shows the back of the watercolor after it had been taken away from the acidic matboard.  The remaining tape is mainly just the glue part—the black plastic crumbled to dust…  Luckily the painting itself was still in pretty good shape. 

Figure 5

 Figure 6 shows the front of the painting.  You can see the acid burn from the matboard all around the edges.  The painting itself may have darkened with age and the colors may have changed.  It was not protected with UV glass, so the old pigments used in the 1960’s may have been vulnerable to fading or darkening if the color was not lightfast.  Standards in pigments have improved greatly, but artists still need to be careful to choose only lightfast colors. 

Figure 6

Figure 7 shows the final re-framed painting.  We cut a new double mat using Bainbridge Artcare alpha cellulose matboard and an acid-free foam core backing board.  Also, the frame was reused because it was a unique hand-made frame still in good condition.  However the corners were coming apart because the glue had failed after 50 years, so we re-glued it and joined it with v-nails.  It should now last for at least 100 years, I would say. 

Figure 7

      The painting has not been put under glass yet, but I would recommend Museum glass for this historical original artwork because it is valued by the owner.  Museum Glass® by TruVue is both a UV-protective glass and an anti-reflective glass, and would enhance the painting tremendously.

     The owner was extremely pleased with these improvements!  Thank you, Carl, for allowing me to show these pictures.

     I am pleased to help make you aware of these issues, and would be happy to answer any questions you have.  Please send me an email at susan@susanavismurphy.com.  Meanwhile, here's hoping your paintings never undergo creeping decomposition!  And that your children and heirs will be always be able to enjoy the paintings you bought or created when you were younger...

      Susan Murphy, ARThouse, June 13, 2012 
      [article copyrighted, contact author for permission to reproduce]

What you don't know might hurt you!   
by Susan Avis Murphy

     Do you know what is one of the main things to think about when buying a work of art?    Longevity....

     By longevity, I mean the durability of the entire artwork over time.  Whether the pigments are lightfast, whether the support of canvas or paper is acid-free, and whether the framing is archival.  An original watercolor can remain fresh and safe for hundreds of years as long as these criteria are met.  A watercolor can last without damage as long or longer than most oil paintings if it is created and kept under the right conditions.  Let me explain.

     Standards in the art materials and framing industry have improved dramatically in the last 20 years.  Today's best pigments are thoroughly labeled as to their lightfastness (resistance to fading) and durability (resistance to other changes with time).  The best paint manufacturers, such as the English company Winsor & Newton, for example, carry lightfast pigments in most of their line.  But not all.  And that is where the problem can arise. 

     Some paints are not as lightfast as others.  For example, a very commonly used pigment in watercolor is Rose Madder Genuine.  This pigment, however, is considered somewhat "fugitive", ie it will "flee" or fade over time.   

     There is a national organization called the ASTM, or American Society for Testing and Materials.  The ASTM conducts lightfastness ratings for artist pigments, and Rose Madder Genuine only gets a rating of III.  Professional artists should only be using pigments with an ASTM rating or I or II.  For my own artwork, I only use totally permanent pigments. Also I always instruct my students to do the same and put a big emphasis on this...
     Take a look at this interesting little chart I created 20 years ago.  This is a segment of a much larger chart I made to test the lightfastness of all the pigments I currently owned.  Strips were painted, labeled, and then half covered with matboard and placed in a bright window for two years (about 3 hours sunlight daily).  Look what happened to Purple Lake, Rose Madder, and especially Scarlet Lake!  Can you believe it?!!  After this, I threw those tubes of paint away!

    

     Once I had a customer tell me about a painting his mother had bought, with red flowers in it.  After two years, the red flowers had disappeared!  Perhaps the artist had used Scarlet Lake!!

     Nowadays I continue to test my pigments just to be safe, and also as way to convince my students of the necessity to pay careful attention to the lightfastness of their pigments.  I have devised (and sell here at ARThouse) a special "Watercolor Test Sheet" that can be filled in with all the pigments an artist owns in order to determine their various properties, including lightfastness.  Here is what the sheet looks like before the artist has painted in the colors:

Here is an example of the sheet after the blues have been painted:

Here is one row of the sheet enlarged:

        Let me explain how the chart works.  Each pigment is used for one row, and painted on with water at a medium value.  The first circle is meant to show the general characteristics of the pigment, especially granularity (cobalt blue does not granulate very much).  The second circle is used to show the staining vs. lifting characteristics of the pigment: the circle is painted and then dried, and then the left half is covered with drafting tape while the right half is scrubbed off (using a stencil brush) with a fixed amount of water and pressure; this shows how easily the paint can be removed and whether it is a staining color.  The third circle is sprinkled with table salt while it is still wet, to show the degree of salt effect achievable.  The fourth circle contains a little black image so that we can see the degree of transparency vs. opacity of the paint.  And last but not least, the rectangle is used to test the lightfastness of the paint.  One half of this square is covered with dark paper and the sheet is hung in a bright window for about three months to two years.
Here is what the larger version looks like with colors painted in and black strips stapled over the rectangular square for the lightfastness test:

       I have found these Watercolor Test Sheets to be extremely useful while I paint.  I use them mainly for choosing colors that I know will be liftable and not stain the paper, one of my main criteria for desirability of a watercolor pigment!  I also use them to remind myself of colors I seldom use.  And most importantly, I use them to ensure that my pigments are lightfast.  Any color that fades is banished from my palette forever!
       You can order a copy of my Watercolor Test Sheet from Amazon.com by going here: Watercolor Test Sheet
       There are several commonly used pigments that I would be wary of, if I were you.  In the Winsor & Newton line, be careful of Rose Madder Genuine and Alizarin Crimson, which get a "B" grade using the company's own rating system, equivalent to a III in ASTM terms.  These colors will change with time.  In the Holbein line, be wary of their four colors beginning with the words "Bright" or "Brilliant": Bright Violet, Bright Rose,  Brlliant Pink, and Brilliant Orange.  The company admits that these colors contain a flourescent dye, which glows upon exposure to light and makes the pigment look brighter.  The problem with this is that the flourescence involves a chemical reaction which decays over time, rendering the pigment much less bright than it was originally!
     As an artist or also an art collector, I would be very wary of collage materials whose sources are questionable.  For example, magazine paper used as collage, photographs, colored tissue paper, or rice papers from unreliable sources could all be extremely fugitive.  The colors you love in that painting when you buy it may not be there two years later!  Also many of these materials are not acid-free and will become brittle and decay with time.  Additionally, the glue used may yellow and suddenly show up like a sore thumb!  Ask the artist if they are confident in the longevity of their materials before buying.  I hate to say this, but hopefully it will make them more aware and more responsible...
     Is there anything you can do to preserve the artwork's colors if you are not sure about their lightfastness?  Yes, you can frame the picture under "UV glass" or Museum Glass (made by TruVue).  Visit the picture framing section of my website for a discussion of these types of glass: info about picture framing glass.  Museum Glass is a wonderful product, because not only will it protect the picture from ultraviolet radiation, but also this glass has an anti-reflective coating (an optical coating like the type put on lenses) that makes the glass seem almost invisible. 
     The bottom line is that artists need to be very careful about the pigments they use, and art buyers need to be careful that the artists they buy from are using lightfast paints!  Here I can say with absolute confidence that the pigments I have been using for the last 20 years are truly lightfast and will stand the test of time...  I thank my lucky stars that I can say this!
     For artists reading this, there is an excellent book on the subject, The Michael Wilcox Guide to the Finest Watercolor Paints by Michael Wilcox (latest version is around c2002).  Buy this book and consider it your Bible.  See the link in the sidebar at right to order this book from Amazon.

     One last comment.  Oil paintings are not necessarily more lightfast than watercolors.  Oil pigments can suffer from the same lightfastness problems, although the oil binder helps make them a little more resistant to fading.  The same is true for acrylics.

    

     I am pleased to help make you aware of this issue, and would be happy to answer any questions you have.  Please leave your comments here and I will gladly respond.  Meanwhile, here's hoping your paintings never flee!  And that your children and heirs will be always be able to enjoy the paintings you bought when you were younger...

Susan Murphy, ARThouse, June 11, 2012

Award winners at our studio show The Art of Watercolor

Brenda Kidera

Awards:  The Art of Watercolor

  May 12 – August 19 2012 

Our awards judge for the show was Brenda Kidera from Woodbine, Maryland, an admired and respected painter and former board member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society.  Here are the awards she decided upon:  (awards are gift certificates to ARThouse, to be used for any purpose)

1st Place:  Barbara Scheihing for “Roots”
2nd Place:  Mimi Hegler for “Kitchen Staples”
3rd Place:  Cecile Kirkpatrick for “Beets, Carrots, and Asparagus”

Honorable Mention:  Janet M. Epstein for “Rooted Matter”
Honorable Mention:  Renée Moneyhun for “Abstract with Two Suns”
Honorable Mention:  Sally Drew for “Rocks and Roots”
Honorable Mention:  Linda Daniels for “Lirio de Agua”
Honorable Mention:  Jean Perretta for “Hiawatha” 
Honorable Mention:  Tanya Rostovtseva for “St. Sebastian” 

Brenda was very impressed with the overall quality of work.  She said that choosing award winners was very difficult and that it took a long time and a lot of serious thought!  Judging was based mainly on technical ability and there were many other worthy paintings.  I thank Brenda Kidera for her kind and careful attention to the job at hand!

Congratulations to the award winners!     --Susan Murphy, ARThouse, May 12, 2012
 
Here are all the award winners, with Brenda's comments below each image:

1st Place:  Barbara Scheihing for “Roots”

This still life has a great composition, exhibits confident handling of the paint, has a nice variation of color and value within shapes, and a lovely background with wonderful subtle texture.  Well done!

2nd Place:  Mimi Hegler for “Kitchen Staples”

I was immediately struck by the strong graphic shapes.  I love the edge quality.  The color palette is beautiful, with repetition of colors throughout the painting.  Nice confident handling of the paint; great use of the white paper in the highlights; uses the full value scale which makes the scene dynamic.

Third Place:  Cecile Kirkpatrick for “Beets, Carrots, and Asparagus” 

Lovely, delicate handling of paint, values and shapes, especially in the asparagus; nice full range of values; interesting composition.  [photo is inaccurate—painting now has dark background—sm]

Honorable Mention:  Janet M. Epstein for “Rooted Matter”

Wonderful abstracted interpretation of roots!  Great handling of color and shape; nice range of values.

Honorable Mention:  Linda Daniels for “Lirio de Agua”

I love this quiet, subtle painting with the shapes emerging and receding.  Lovely colors and use of the rice paper.

Honorable Mention:  Tanya Rostovtseva for “St. Sebastian”

Excellent lifting and modeling of the figure.  Love the color palette and positioning of the figure in the composition.

Honorable Mention:  Sally Drew for “Rocks and Roots”

Nice handling of the paint, especially in the shadow areas.  You’ve been successful in keeping these dark areas interesting, lively, and most of all, not muddy.  A subtle lifted swash of light across the glass on the side would be nice.  Lovely handling of paint -- letting the colors float together without forcing it with the brush.

Honorable Mention:  Jean Perretta for “Hiawatha”

Very nice handling of the colors, working in conjunction with the poured background.  I especially like the use of turquoise darks in the few chosen spots.  The pencil lines have a nice varied quality, light into dark, coming and going, which work well.

Honorable Mention:  Renée Moneyhun for “Abstract with Two Suns”

Nice composition with interesting and successful color choices; good value range and use of whites and black.  I especially like the variation of texture, color and value in the “green” area—would like to see a bit more of this pushed in a few other areas.

Thanks for inviting me to jury this excellent show!

Brenda Kidera,  at ARThouse,  May 10, 2012

A rustic kitchen still life in watercolor -- painting "Hearth Spoons"

This past week in our Still Life in Watercolor class, we painted old earthy-looking found objects, such as jugs on a bench, old kitchen utensils, and old door latches and hinges.  The idea was to find rusty, textured objects and materials that would lend themselves to watercolor techniques that yield lots of texture.  For my demonstration painting, I choose the image below, which is a photo of old wrought-iron and brass kitchen ladles hanging in front of a hearth.  The photo was actually taken at Colonial Williamsburg  in Virginia about 30 years ago!  (I hang on to my reference photos forever--you never know when you might need them!).

Step 1.  I did this painting on a half sheet of stretched Arches 140 lb cold-press.  First I created a 13x20" template of the image on cheap paper using my printer, and I used this to trace the complicated image onto the watercolor paper using Saral graphite transfer paper.  Then I went over the drawing with an 01 brown Micron pen, which is indelible and will not come off with a lot of wetting.  I am going to use my special "rivulet technique" for this painting to create an interesting textured underpainting, and I don't want my whole drawing to wash off!

Step 2.  Now I created my background wash.  This is a special technique I devised about 30 years ago when doing paintings of construction rubble.  I mix up a large pool of raw umber to about a heavy cream consistency and paint it all over the paper.  Usually I intersperse a few other colors during this process, keeping the whole sheet wet all the while.  Then I hold the board vertically, and spray water on this raw umber wash, making the paint run down the page and form interesting channels and "rivulets".  Students in my classes have seen this technique, and unfortunately I don't have a photo showing the whole process, but here are the end results:

Step 3.  I decided that since these were Early-American kitchen tools, I would give the painting a muted red, white, and blue theme to suggest "Americana".  I might even incorporate an object in place of the metal chain on the right to suggest something purely American and from the hearth and home.  Got to think about that!  Here I have begun glazing in some background colors, using Winsor & Newton brown madder on the left and cobalt blue on the right.  These are transparent colors that will allow the textured background wash to show through.  All the colors I will be using in this painting are "liftable" (i.e. they are not staining colors), which will allow me to come back with a stencil brush after they are dry and lift out any shapes I want.  You have tremendous flexibility with this approach. 

Step 4.  Here I have added a third large wash using a mixture of cobalt blue and permanent violet.  I like to tint and "tame" all of the raw umber portions of the picture, because I find that the raw umber alone is sometimes a little harsh.  By applying these large washes very gently, I avoid lifting up the underlying raw umber.

Step 5.  Now for the fun part.  I have begun lifting out color to bring out shapes.  All of the spoon shapes are going to be created this way because they are actually lighter than the background.  Using a natural bristle stencil brush (normally used for applying paint to stencils) and a little water, I gently scrub away the paint and then immediately blot with a paper towel.  To get a harder edge around my objects, I surround the shape with pieces of 3M drafting tape.  Here I first selectively removed paint from the spoons to suggest their shiny surface, and then I went back and tinted them with yellow.

A few of my favorite stencil brushes--sometimes I take an ordinary taklon brush and give it a "crew cut", like the pink one and the narrow brush on the bottom.  OK, OK, the top one is actually a make-up brush!

Step 6.  You will notice in the original photograph that part of the fireplace is painted white, which makes the tools stand out nicely against it.  Sometimes I use titanium white in these pictures, but in a semi-transparent way so that the rivulets will show through.  That is what I have done here, starting with the white part on the left.  Later I will finish this wall if it seems to be working well.  Meanwhile, I continued painting more of the tools in the same manner, using drafting tape to define the edges and then lifting out the paint with a small stencil brush, then tinting the area with the appropriate color.  You can get almost down to the white of the paper with this technique, as long as you are not using staining colors.  For a list of all the paints I have on my palette, showing which ones are staining, visit my website at: Susan Murphy supply list

 Step 7.  Making progress on lifting out all the handles.  It can be slow work but is kind of fun.  You feel confident that you are creating good shapes and you have a great deal of control, something which is difficult in watercolor.

this is a close-up of the above so you can see the rivulet wash better

a close-up of the spoons

Step 8.  Here I have expanded the dark background (it is actually inside the fireplace) and added more darks.  I'm afraid this is as far as I have gotten at this point, and will have to show you the finished painting later!   Colors used in this painting so far are Winsor & Newton raw umber, cobalt blue, brown madder, aureolin, titanium white, French ultramarine, and Holbein verditer blue, permanent violet, and neutral tint.  I hope you get to do a "rustic still life" and if you do, please stop by and show it to me!

Announcement:   

We are having a fabulous exhibit of paintings by my students, called "The Art of Watercolor", which will include dozens of beautiful paintings.  See your invitation below!  The grand Opening Reception is the weekend of May 12 and 13 (Mother's Day Weekend) and the show continues through August 19th.  You will be inspired by dozens of paintings from the still life class, figure class, and abstract class.  Come and enjoy the artwork, elegant refreshments, and good conversation.  There will be a door prize (one of my framed giclee prints) and admission is FREE!  (well, isn't it always?...)  Hope you can come!