Poster Mountain

This week's blog is the first of two covering the restoration of a 1928 Renault poster. I wanted to focus on the process it takes for us to restore images where large sections are missing when I realized I hadn't ever done an automobile poster before, so two birds with one stone!  After linen backing this piece, we did the prep work. I found paper that was almost a perfect match but wasn't quite the right dimensions for the largest hole. So, I did what I call a Frankenstein patch and used two patches from the same paper for the large hole.  Two patches from the same paper, cobbled together to make one big patch!  The patch for the missing corner. Gabe took over after the prep work was finished. For works such as this, where we do have a reference, he starts by taking the measurements of the poster and then printing out the reference scaled to size. From there he begins to sketch in the lines that we need and to determine how many different c

In 1943 Antoine de Saint-Exupery published a novella name The Little Prince. Since then it has been beloved by both children and adults, encouraging readers never to abandon imagination or hope. I love this book. My friends love this book. (Seriously, ask my friend who had the stars from the original illustration tattooed on her ankle.) So, when I got the chance to repair someone's beloved copy of The Little Prince I was thrilled.  The first two pages, including the title page with the illustration of the Little Prince and the birds, were torn out. This was a project where we were not doing restoration, just repairing the torn pages so our repairs had to be as seamless as possible. We used a combination of Okawara and Tengucho, both of which are Japanese made papers. Okawara is a thicker, sturdier paper that is usually a creamy color.The Tengucho is tissue-like, but is deceptively strong. The first page of a book is called the front free-end page and it is often

It has been a while since we posted any updates about the massive restoration project that is the Women Love Diamonds poster. So, a quick recap: Last summer the poster was literally in pieces and missing a very large chunk right in the middle. John and Madalyn went through multiple steps to get the poster linen backed and then prepped so restoration could begin. (All of which you can read in detail in Part 1 and Part 2 .) The main issue we encountered with this poster, besides the fact that it was originally in shreds, was that as far as we can tell it is a one of a kind poster and thus no reference exists for us to base our restoration off of. This is just the kind of challenge that we love at Poster Mountain! Ravi, Gabe and John had a quick consultation and decided to base the restoration of our leading lady's dress off of stills from the movie and other dresses from that time period. Before restoration.  At the end of Episode 2, Ravi had gotten a basic outl

This is the last part in our Cacao series! Part 2 ended with all the borders being replaced and all the holes in the poster filled. Restoration is the final step and is often the most time consuming. This poster needed at least five different colors airbrushed, which also means five different masks. Pete got to work, laboriously covering up or opening up areas using a low tack tape, acetate, frisket and misket. He has quite the arsenal of tools! Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of Aaron in action during airbrushing. However, his work speaks for itself. Pictured below are before and afters of several of the layers of colors he was working on. It's been a while now, but I think this is the border was the final area that was airbrushed.  After airbrushing, the boys (excuse me, men) with all the colored pencils get to work filling in all the small details that make a good poster. My favorite photos of Gabe were when he was working on the longitudes and lati

We've been busy the last month! I always have good intentions of putting up short weekly updates of what we're working on to tide you over until we have time for a longer post, however I have not lived up to my intentions. But I'm going to get better! Starting with this week. We've had several large scale projects that we've been working on, but the most interesting and time consuming is probably a Sarah Bernhardt poster designed by Alfonse Mucha. We have done quite a few of these over the years, so we're not going to do a start to finish post. However, I will put up some process photos and eventually a final photo when we are done. This particular poster is owned by our friends over in the UK at AntikBar . Their website is worth checking out and they recently opened up a brick and mortar shop in London, so if you're over there stop by to see what they have. And in a few months this poster will probably be available! As John likes to say, this poste

Part 1 of this series finished with the old backing being removed from an early 20th Century French Cacao poster. After taking the backing off we washed the poster again to try to remove as much of the leftover adhesive as possible. Then it was again put through the isinglass gelatin process and left to dry face down on a board overnight.    John and Ravi moving the large and heavy melamine board over to the shelves so it can dry overnight.  There was still a thin layer of adhesive remaining on the back of the poster. John used a fine grit sand paper to remove this last layer of glue. John checking and sanding down any uneveness leftover from the remaining adhesive. Next, the poster was removed from the board with the hollytex facing still on the front. The poster was then washed one last time before glue was applied to the back and it was mounted to masa and linen. John washing the poster and hollytex for a final time. After applying glue to the back of the