Chuck, Jim's friend, called and told me his son had sliced the canvas when he was opening the box it was in with a box cutter. He asked if I was able to repair it and how much would it cost. I told him I needed to see the painting to get a good idea of the time involved. He brought the painting over to my studio a short time later. I was expecting a smallish cut, maybe no bigger then a few inches. What I saw was no small cut. The canvas was nearly cut from top to bottom, with a small skipped section.
After talking with Chuck to get an assessment of value for the painting, in other words was it a valuable piece or a sentimental one. I learned it was part of a set of five paintings. Each painting had one of his boats in it and the paintings were done by a local artist in 1976. The artist is no longer around.
After examining the painting I told him yes I could repair it but there may be imperfections left visible due to the wide gap toward the center of the cut. He was fine with that and the estimated $50 an hour approximate three hours I thought it would take.
The slideshow below is the step by step process I took to repair the painting. The repair took three and a half hours. The drying time between each patch, coats of gesso and layers of oil paint approximately 4 weeks. I don't charge for drying time.
Chuck had come by to see the nearly completed repair job and was over joyed with it at that stage ( see picture number 12 ). I told him I needed to build up the oil paint a bit more to fill in the gap. Then I would be satisfied.
I had Charlie and a few artist friends of mine look over the painting to see if they could see the damaged area. I was happy when they told me they couldn't.
Time to call Chuck.