A project of the Research into Practice Initiative

The workshop series Cleaning of Acrylic Painted Surfaces (CAPS) began in 2009 and has reached over 65 practicing conservators through workshops in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Washington DC with future workshops planned for Australia, Europe, and Southeast Asia. The workshops aim to disseminate a wealth of new information and research about acrylic paints, and to help conservators put it into practice in a way that can be tailored to address specific problems and contexts.

The didactic materials below were created for the workshop series. New materials will be added as they are developed.

Teaching Note
Introduces materials, describes workshop objectives, and teaching and learning methodologies used

Course Bibliography

Workshop Schedule

Session Outlines
Acrylic Paint Binders
Recent Research into Cleaning: Wet Cleaning of Acrylic Paints
    and New Cleaning Options
Recent Research into Cleaning: Control of Swelling
Chemistry of Liquid Cleaning
Modular Cleaning Program

Technical Notes
Modular Cleaning Program Recipes
Downloading and Registering the Modular Cleaning Program
pH Meters
pH Adjusted Water Recipes

Videos
Narrated by workshop instructor Chris Stavroudis, these 9 short videos demonstrate useful techniques and provide technical information related to the cleaning of acrylic painted surfaces.

Watch videos on YouTube.

OR

Watch the 9 videos below.
To see the a list of videos click "Playlist" in the left corner of video window below.