Suppose you have a collection of past oil paintings you have painted, but no longer want to store them in your house. Now what? I personally would not want to throw away canvas, it can be expensive to buy more. But, can you reuse an oil painting on canvas you no longer want? Short answer: yes!
The first thing you should do, no matter what, analyze your older work. Why are these in storage and not hanging proudly on your wall? As you progress in your practice, learn from your older work. What skills did you not possess before? What mistakes can you see now that you have more experience?
As it turns out, you can paint directly over your dried oil painting. If there are a few small changes you can make to improve your painting, go for it! Before you paint on a dried painting, use a damp cloth and wipe off any dust.
You can paint directly on dried oil paint, but what if you want to start over completely? In this two part blog post, I am going to experiment on how to do this. Most of the articles I read stated that as long as you keep using oil paint, you should be fine. Do not paint over your oil painting with acrylic paint, the paint will crack later on. All paintings should also be sanded down to diminish any lumps or raised paint.
After reading a few articles, I watched this video followed by this video. Merging these two methods together, I came up with my experimental method below. As a side note, I found this video quirky and quite enjoyable. I came across it while looking for ways to reuse canvas, so it’s kind of on topic!
The three oil paintings above I no longer want to keep and I would like to reuse. The one on the far left, I will blog about separately. Covered in Bob Ross liquid black, this painting still felt wet. For this blog post, I would like to focus on the other two paintings.
I started by sanding the paintings to remove any raised paint. The frame boards press on the canvas, consequently they get sanded the most. If I use my hand to lift the other parts of the canvas, I could even it out. The more you sand, the more paint gets removed. Happy with the results, I moved on to the next step.
Next, I took the paintings outside and poured a small amount of paint thinner/mineral spirits on them. I honestly just wanted to see what this would do. Wiping them off with a shop towel, I did not notice any paint coming off. I will probably skip this step in the future if my paintings are dry.
Finally, I wanted a neutral base for a fresh start. I use a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna for the wash and under-painting in my paintings. I wanted a similar color. Hence, I added white, lightening the blue and brown mixture. Mixing up a pile of the three I loaded up a large brush. Working slowly to make the paint last, I scrubbed in the color before going back over to load more paint. Additionally, this kept the base thin, which I preferred. I worked the brush strokes horizontally and vertically for an even coat.
Afterward, I was left with two canvases to start a painting from scratch! In the next blog post, I’ll discuss painting over the old, freshly re-surfaced canvas.
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Thanks Brad!