How to Clean an Oil Painting at Home
It is very common for an oil painting to accumulate dust particles over a period of time and thus become dirty. If you are facing such a situation, you will definitely want to know the best way of cleaning such paintings. Fortunately, the task is fairly easy and can be accomplished easily in more than one way. However, it does require patience and takes a fairly long duration of time to complete.
Things Required:
– Cotton Swabs
– Bread
– Soft Brush
Instructions
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1
Using Your Spit
- This method of cleaning an oil painting may sound ridiculous, but the fact is that it is probably the best way around because this method causes little or no damage at all. However, it does take up a lot of cotton swabs and a lot of patience.
- Take a cotton swab and moisten it up with your spit. However, the swab should not be dripping with your spit. It should only be moist enough to pick up dirt particles from the oil painting.
- Locate a stain or a dirty patch on the oil painting and start dabbing it gently with the cotton swab. Avoid moving the cotton swab sideways; work in a soft dotting motion instead. Stay focused on a small portion of the stain, clean it and then move on to the next portion.
- The cotton swab will eventually become very dirty itself. When that happens, start using the other end of the cotton swab in a similar way. When that gets dirty as well, get a new cotton swab and continue until the entire painting has been cleaned. -
2
Using Bread
- Get a loaf of bread and divide it into two equal halves at the center. Set aside one of the bread halves and lightly dab and brush the oil painting with the other half. It will start absorbing and thus removing dirt and grime particles from the oil painting.
- As was the case with cotton swabs, be sure to change sides of the piece of bread when one of the sides gets dirty. When the entire piece of bread gets dirty, dispose it off and start using a new one.
- Continue until you are positive that the entire painting has been cleaned. Brush away bread crumbs from the painting with a soft brush. Your oil painting is now clean of dirt and grime and you can proudly display it in your gallery.
