My most recent conservation project came to me via craigslist (with the help of an alert friend). The client had bought a serigraph print in acrylics on paper, and it was bent in the mail. A crease ran from top to bottom across the image, and the paint layer cracked along the crease. You can see a detail of the damage at the right. In person, the white showing where the paint was cracked was more jarring. I first re-flattened the print by lightly misting the reverse with water to relax the paper and then drying it under weight. Once that was done, I mixed watercolors to match the colors of the print, testing them on a paper of similar color and texture. When I was satisfied with the color matches, I used a fine sable brush to dot the watercolor into the cracked areas until the white was no longer visible. After the paint dried, I inspected the results and touched it up slightly. When it was done, I showed it to my husband to see whether the damage and infill were obvious to fresh eyes; he wasn't sure until I pointed out where it was.
