Stage 4 - Restoration in the gallery

Now we could begin the delicate task of restoring The Sirens and Ulysses. The paint layer had seriously deteriorated, with large areas of missing paint and abrasion damage leaving the picture difficult to make out. We needed to fill and retouch these missing areas to return some cohesion to the painted image. We also had to ensure that respect for the artist's original intent was considered at all times.

Gap-filling and preparation for retouching

20. Applying the fill, smoothing and texturing

A filling putty made from chalk and glue (Mowiflex) is applied with a spatula. It is allowed to dry and then smoothed flush to the paint layer using moistened swabs and scalpel scraping. Texture is created using diluted filling putty, to mimic the surrounding paint texture.

21. Varnishing

The painting is given a brush coat of varnish (Paraloid B72) to seal the absorbent fills and saturate the paint layer. This helps us to match the colours accurately and separates our retouching from the original paint layers.

Retouching

22. Mixing paint

A solvent (propan-2-ol) is used to dissolve and pick up some of the retouching paint (Gamblin retouching colours), which is placed on the palette. A simple mixture of a few colours is made that matches the colour of the missing paint.

23. Tinted neutral retouching

If the missing area of paint is too big or the surrounding paintwork too abstract, we can't make an informed decision as to how it might have looked. So, we apply a single colour, matched to the lightest tone of the surrounding paint. The rest is left to the viewer's imagination.

24. Imitative retouching

When we can use the surrounding paintwork to work out what is missing, we retouch to mimic the original. Successive layers of paint are applied to match the glazes and imperfections of the surrounding paint, so that the new paintwork blends in.

This is the restoration journey of the painting so far.