Varnish Project Final Thoughts

Top to bottom: Sunflower, Hibiscus, Mirabilis Jalapa

I first started this project because I wanted to see if there was a way for me to manipulate the finishes of my paintings without sacrificing the values and clarity of the paintings themselves combined with my lack of experience in photographing my art. Anytime I would photograph my artwork I would be battling against the glare due to my high-gloss varnish and I just wouldn’t be pleased with how it looked. My fiancé said that he likes the glare because it shows off paint strokes in various areas and while I agree, it still doesn’t feel like it renders well in photographs. I even had the idea to add to every one of my paintings in my art shop a short video or GIF of me rotating the painting back and forth to give a better feel of the paintings - and while I still plan on doing this before my big website launch, it’s still something that kind of frustrates me.

Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely adore the way the high gloss varnish makes my paintings shine but at the same time I don't want to be frustrated with it. I've adopted a few techniques to combat my glare issue after some research. I've obtained a few polarization films/lenses for photographs and will play around with experimentations before I end up launching my shop.

The "Sunflower" painting above is varnished with the Gamvar Picture Varnish, and it's the one I like the most in terms of finishes. It really shows off the depth of values and is a great polish. The "Hibiscus" painting above is varnished with the Gamvar Satin Varnish. I didn't like this one that much because the Satin doesn't seem like a good halfway mark between the Picture and Matte varnishes. Compositionally it is my favorite painting of the three, but I miss the gloss that the Picture varnish would give it. Lastly, the "Mirabilis Jalapa" painting above is varnished with the Gamvar Matte Varnish. I really disliked this varnish - it muted my range of values in the background and felt like it fused everything together too much. It does give me vibes of those 90's tween/teen novel covers, but I really think the varnish does the painting a disservice. However, I am glad that I did take the time to run this project because I wanted to see what the results were and I got to paint some of my reference photos that I've been saving for a while. What is your favorite painting?

Links in the names of the paintings will re-direct you to my shop if they're currently for sale!