1. Why does the painting I bought is just a canvas? Can it being stored for a long term?
A: In general, a complete oil painting is equipped with inner and outer frames. But sometimes for transportation consideration, inner frames are not installed yet, so don’t worry if your painting is only a canvas. After checking that there is no physical damage on your painting, you would better install inner frame at once. Although the canvas not installed with inner frames is often rolled for storage, it only applies to short-terms. If it is not installed with inner frames for a long period, small cracks will be produced, or even foundation cracks, which are difficult to be fixed. If your storage space is limited, you are not able to install inner frames, it will be better for you to lay the painting onto a table.

picture derived from decoraport

2. Although the oil painting is already installed with inner frames, why sometimes the painting is loose and sometimes tight? How to avoid this problem?
A: When installing the inner frame, the decorator moderately stretch the canvas onto frame, which is artistic and not prone to wrinkles. However, the reason why tightness changes is due to different canvas materials and air humidity. The basic rule is that: pure linen canvas will loosen in high moisture environment, and tighten in dry area. Linen canvas basically does not make any difference when changing moisture degree. Cotton canvas is a counter-example, when exposed to water or moisture environment, it will get tighten. It is not difficult to avoid such problems, if the painting is mounted in spring and autumn, it will get slack during the summer, at this time if you take the painting to ventilated place, it will become naturally smooth and tight within several hours. If it is still loose, you can re-disassemble and moderately stretch it. You will never encounter this problem anymore.

3. At the beginning, the oil painting was bright, but after a period of time, why does it become bleak?

A: Sometimes, collectors purchase the oil painting immeediately after it was created. The creation was just completed, painting was not thoroughly dry yet, so the color was bright and shinning. After time goes by, the painting gets completely dry, its color definitely will become dim. If you still pursue bright color painting, you can do glazing by yourself with the purchase of varnish. The specific method is to lay the painting onto ground, and brush the varnish evenly onto the paining. When the painting dries, pain over again. Repeatedly glazing has a better effect when compared to massive glazing on a time. Moreover, brushing not only brightens your painting, but also prevents the dye from being exposed to air, in case of being oxidated. Another tip is that glazing should be conducted after the paint dries completely.