Removing Dents

  This entry was originally posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Today I had a call from a friend that had a problem with her watercolor paper. 

She had dented it when she pressed too hard with her pencil.

My friend reminded me of the time when I had a similar situation and asked how I removed the dent and hoped that it would do the same for her lines. 

My painting happened to be a beautiful commission portrait of a young girl.

I had spent many hours on it and as it was nearing completion, my lamp next to my table fell over on top of it. The lamp ended up putting a huge dent right in the middle of the forehead. Fortunately it did not tear the paper. It just left that dent.

Instead of  panicking,(okay I did panic a little) I asked myself how this little  disaster can be fixed. 

I decided that maybe I could iron it out. But I was afraid to use an actually iron. So instead I used a hot spoon. First I dipped the spoon in boiling water (for the heat and the moisture) then I very carefully ironed it out on the back side. (a butter knife also works) 

I am happy to say that it worked!

There was no evidence of the dent.

Since then, I have had a few mishaps with dents and pressing too hard with my own pencil and this method seems to work well for me every time.