Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

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when the lather covers it about the width of a finger it is good enough.

When you have had it cooking fo r a while, take it from the fire and im­

mediately add fo ur or five hard and fresh pieces of chicken dung. Then you

sieve it through a straining cloth, without wringing it. Then put as much as

you need of it back in the water and use it as it pleases you.

[45] To color and lay gold on oranges and other fruits. Take previously described

glue and douse your hands in it. Rub with these washed hands the orange

or any another apple very well. Let it dry. Then wet your hands again and

rub this fr uit again until it has taken on the glue well. Then give it the color

you want it to take. But if you wish to be it in gold, be it as letters or in

gold leaves, do as follows: Take armoniac, very well ground with urine on

the porphyry stone. Distemper it with urine, but not so much that it flows

from the pen, because the letters or the leaves want to be done with the

brush over the colors with this armoniac. Let it dry. Next take the gold leaf

and put it on the letters. But you should know that the letters first need to

be warmed up with the knife. Then, when the gold is laid, immediately press

lightly on it with cottonwool. Then rub with the cottonwool over the letters

so that the gold that does not adhere to the letters is taken off. Yo u can also

give it beautiful, nice colors.

[46] To make a tragacanth gum paste oj any color you want, to make reliifs. Take

as much tragacanth gum as you want and put it in a glass or a dish, and add

so much vinegar that it covers the tragacanth. But the vinegar you put in

should be strong. Let it stand to soak fo r two days and two nights. Then take

slaked gypsum which is dry. Next take lead white and triturate it very well

with the tragacanth in a mortar. But put on the bottom of the mortar {19r}

a bit of the gypsum so that the lead white and the tragacanth will not stick

to the mortar. To prevent it from sticking to the pestle, put also some gypsum

on that. Pound it well and it will become a paste as white as cottonwool. If

you want the paste to become black, do as fo llows: Take a lit candle and over

the flame you hold a piece of tinned iron so close that it touches the flame,

whose smoke will deposit in a black spot. Take this deposit and rub it together

with the paste. And the more you put into it the better it will be. Grind it

with indigo if you want it to be blue, and if you put in little, it will be light

blue, and it will be dark blue if you put much more indigo in it. If you want

it to be red, put in vermilion which has been finely ground on the porphyry

stone. The more you put in, the redder it will be. If you add little of it, it

will be of a flesh tone. Put in a bit of well pulverized verdigris if you want

.it to be green. If you want it to be yellow, put in some well ground orpiment.

If you want it to be a purple color, put in a bit of lac. Know that the more

of these colors you put in, the stronger colored it will be. The paste you thus

make should be a little bit harder and you make it in such a way that you

grind it again many times with the previously mentioned things. To make a

good paste and to prevent it from sticking, either to the mortar, or to the

pestle, knead a piece of it in your hand. When you want make it in a mold,

take some of the soft paste that fits on the blade of a knife, or even less. But

if you want to let it harden in a lead or clay mold, clad the fo rm with some

cotton so that the paste will not get stuck to the mold. Apply some warm

bone glue in the areas where you want to do some modeling or make foliage.

That will do it.

[47] Papier mache to make re liifs. Take scraps of the paper cuttings from books

and put them to boil in a kettle. When it has boiled, take the scraps out and

pound them fine in a bronze {19v} mortar. Then let it boil a second time.

Take the kettle from the fire once it has boiled and let it cool down. When

it is cold enough to have your hands in it, take this paper pulp out. Squeeze

the water out, make balls of it and let them dry. When you want to make

reliefs with it, put these balls to soak in hot water during one or two days.

When the water is cooled down enough to have your hands in it, break the

balls and stir. It will become like a dough. This paste spreads smoothly. Apply

Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice