Themes > Arts > Painting > Painting Principles and Techniques > Painting Instructions > Processing your painting > Protecting

After the artist is satisfied and the painting is done, the next step would be to protect the painting. Protecting will prevent the elements used in a painting from being soiled by dust, dirt or other pollution. Such soiling will alter the colours and textures of the painting. Applying protection too has to suit the painting media used. Here, protection can be classified into two, based on the media used, they are wet media (including water colour, oil colour, acrylic colour) and dry media (including pencil, pastel, drawing chalk, etc) For oil and acrylic media, protection is applied by brushing or spraying varnishon the painting. Varnish is a liquid made of a mix of highly evaporative resin. Varnish can be applied early by brushing a single layer of varnish with a soft brush in a horizontal or vertical motion, or sprayed on top of a finished and completely dried painting. As for water colour painting, protection should be done by using a glass cover over the painting/paper. To protect dry media painting, a fixative is sprayed on top of the drawing so the drawing is safe from dust and dirt, and the media used will not change in colour. The fixative would be preventing damage to the painting, especially the colour and texture. To protect the painting, a layer of fixative is sprayed over the painting, for both paper and canvas painting.

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