paintg-panels-msg - 2/25/12
Assembling wood panels for use as a painting medium.
NOTE: See also the files: pigments-msg, painting-msg, woodworking-msg, wood-finishes-msg, glues-msg, brushes-msg, plaster-msg.
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Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 09:31:34 -0500
From: Cindy Baker <cebaker at ilstu.edu>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: wood panel painting
Greetings, Asa.
As I understand it, panel painting was usually done on a wooden board which
was sanded smooth and coated with gesso. A layer of size (hide glue) might
be applied to the raw wood before the gesso to make the gesso adhere better.
The gesso was made of size mixed with slaked plaster-of-paris or ground
chalk in some form.
I think the usual paint medium was egg tempera. I'm not sure how oils would
behave on this type of gesso ground. Modern commercial gesso is really not
the same substance as the medieval gesso.
Egg tempera is fairly easy to make. Mix the powdered pigment with water to
a thick 'toothpaste' consistency. Then add egg yolk (about 50/50 yolk &
pigment paste is a good starting point.) You can add more water to thin the
paint to brushable consistency. Paint out a bit on a sheet of smooth glass.
Let it dry. Use the edge of a knife to 'peel' up the dried paint layer. If
the paint cracks and powders, you need more egg yolk. If it lifts off in a
sheet or strips, you have about the right mix. Some pigments need more yolk
than others.
There are a couple of good sources on period materials:
"The Craftsman's Handbook, Il Libro dell' Arte," by Cennino d'Andrea
Cennini, Dover Publications ISBN 048620054x
"Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting," by Mary P.
Merrifield, Dover publications ISBN 0486404404
Your local library might also have some good resources.
Maybe some of the other folks on this list have more info on other types of
support or recipes for gesso & tempera?
Ellen of the Scholars
Middle Kingdom
At 10:55 PM 10/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
>I am interested in doing painting on panels in probably a Northern Ren
style.
> I understand the style, colors, techniques but have gone blank on the
>materials to use to "recreate" a panel. I've misplaced my college books and
>am looking for some good places to start. Any advise? I've done tons of
>acrylic and guache but I am not familiar enough with oils to really feel
>comfortable. Will a gesso base on wood work with an egg/tempera media?
>When I've worked with modern oils I had a tendency to muddy the picture and
>rush the drying times. Are modern oils close enough? I know each artist
had
>there own recipe. I don't want to end up with a Leonardo Disaster where the
>paint slides off the suface. What about the panels? I've used masonite in
>college, would that be an okay base or should I try luanne or plywood? I
>know I've seen some good references on these, but my brain has turned to
>mush. Thanks for anybody's help.
>
>Asa Hrafnasdottir, Loch Ruadh
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 12:20:33 EDT
From: "Lady Derdriu" <deirdre1114 at hotmail.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: wood panel painting
One thing that also seems to work is to sand the gesso down once it is
completely dry. This requires applying several layers of gesso and letting
each one dry completely before applying a new one. You should buy different
grades of sandpaper and start with the coarser ones first, working down to
the finer ones for the smoothest surface possible. This creates a really
nice surface to work with. I don't know much about recipes for period gesso,
but the commercial stuff works pretty well if you aren't particular about
authenticity.
--Derdriu
Lady Derdriu ingen Muiredaig
mka Abby Carr
Minister of Arts & Sciences
Canton of Elvegast
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 14:29:56 -0800 (PST)
From: P Hammond <pompam3 at yahoo.com>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: wood panel painting
I have done some oil on wood painting years ago. The
only prep necessary to keep the painting from
"disappearing" is to seal the wood with some sort of
clear sealant that will fill the pores of the wood
before starting. The sealant we used was plain old
acrylic or poly coat. In the middle ages they would
have used a lacquar or shellac type substance.
However, these take a millenia to dry not to mention;
especially for shellac, cause the paint media to
change color after type, as it too will absorb into
the paint and "lift the color". I don't have any
primary sources for this but one could look in any of
the "Micalangilo, Rembrant, etc" type books for
clarification on exactly what media they would have
used. In addition, the sealant would have been
different of course from region to region depending on
the available basic components to attain the effect
needed.
Caitriona of White Moor
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 00:21:42 -0500 (EST)
From: <Rutlands at aol.com>
To: SCA-ARTS at UKANS.EDU
Subject: Wood Panels
Greetings from Daniel of Rutland, OL, Atlantia, who didn't know this list
existed until just an hour or so ago.
I am a portrait artist who works primarily in oils on panels. paintings
have traditionally been done on gessoed and often linen-covered wood panels,
when done on panels (as opposed to "canvas"). In none of my research have seen evidence of just working on a sealed, as opposed to gessoed panel, in
pictorial (as opposed to decorative, as in furnishings) artwork. The gesso ranges in thickness from artist to artist and region to region. Northern
artists traditionally used less gesso than southern ones did. I believe
Petrus Christus used next to none. But I will check that out and get back to
you. The porous wood must be sealed, which was done with a hide glue of some
sort, and is best covered with some gesso. The gesso should buffer against
the acidity of the wood, conceal the grain and make a smooth surface for fine
detail work. The more gesso the smoother the surface that can be achieved.
When I say gesso I do not mean acrylic gesso, which is a totally modern
phenomenon. I mean calcium carbonate of some sort mixed with animal skin
or hide glue of some kind. This is gesso grosso. Gesso sottile (pardon my
spelling; it is late at night and my reference books are in another wing of
the house) is made of slaked calcium sulfate typically, such as gypsum, which
is then dried, reground and mixed with the glue solution. It is mostly a
southern, such as Italian, phenomenon, and is more for egg tempera work and
gilding.
I have painted on gesso for years. It is best done with an egg tempera
underpainting if you have patience. The gesso soaks up the oils in the lower
layers, which should be lean, i.e. low in oil and thin, anyhow. How to
reduce the porosity? Coat the panel with a layer of hide glue or oil and
solvent, such as turps. The recommendation for this goes back centuries, I
believe, but is not evidenced in practice. I use so many layers that it
doesn't really matter. Just make sure the paint dries adequately between
layers.
The following is a brief synopsis of my sort of period gessoing technique that
I sent a friend a week or so ago:
All of my gesso work is on panels. My current m.o., in a nutshell, is to make
a 1:12 glue solution, cover one side and the edges of a board (oak or 5-ply
mahogany plywood) with the solution. Let it dry a day. Do the other side. Dry
again. Brush on another coat of warm glue. Lay linen smoothly on it, brush on
glue until the linen is saturated, then smooth it with an acrylic brayer.
Turn it over, pull the excess linen around, do hospital corners or some other
taut ones, and glue the linen down by the same process. Pray heavily that the
panel doesn't warp. Then coat the back with a solution of glue with some
calcium carbonate added in, not a lot. Then gesso the front several layers.
My formula now is one part glue solution, 1 3/4 parts calcium carbonate, 1/4
part titanium (not period) to brighten it up, and a dollop of cold-pressed
linseed oil, which makes a smoother gesso and supposedly makes it less
absorptive, which is needed for oil painting but not good for egg tempera. My
latest panels are the first with the linseed oil. I will let you know how it
works out. I have not documented the addition of oil to the gesso to period
sources.
I brush on the gesso, then smooth it a little after it has set up a
little, using a steel, Stanley scraper, a very hard small rectangle with no
handle. After it dries slightly from gleam to glisten I put on another coat,
and then another, and more until I am ready to scream. Usually around 5
coats. When it is dry, and if hasn't cracked, I smooth it a little with the
Stanley, then wet sand it with a coarse sanding sponge. When it has dried, I
smooth it more with a medium and then fine sanding sponge, then rub it down
with some bunched up linen. The glue I am using is Rabbit Skin glue. The
calcium carbonate is Champagne chalk. It gets lumpy and I put the gesso
through cheese cloth once or twice before applying it. Fredrix marble dust
doesn't get lumpy that way. Most of my materials I buy from Kremer Pigments
in New York. Do you know them? Wonderful array of period and similar stuff.
A more period tool than the Stanley scraper is a wood wedge.
On a related note that someone asked about in one of the posts on panels:
Modern tube oils have the same basic ingredients as the old time (period)
ones, i.e. pigments and oil, although unless you are careful you can get
modern synthetic pigments in your paints. However, various fillers are of
ten added to tube paints, which changes the consistency radically into that
pastiness that doesn't work for period techniques unless thinned way down.
For more period paints mix your own.
You can buy good pre-ground pigments, from places like Kremer Pigments, and
good oils, from places like Kremer Pigments, and mix them on a glass or stone
flat surface with a muller. I use a big glass muller that I bought from
Kremer Pigments. Work the pigment and minimum possible oil together on the
plate, smushing it in various directions, including a figure eight pattern,
until fully mixed. That can be a minute to half an hour, depending on the
consistency and evenness you want. One of the beauties of hand-mixed paints
is that they are not as silky as commercial and can reflect and refract light
in far more intriguing and subtle ways.
Enough for now. Bedtime. If you want documentation or more detail for any
of the above, ask and I will try to find the time to come up with it.
Another day I will get into period panel making and assembling processes
(as opposed to using plywood). And then into period frames, one of my ongoing
passions. See the latest issue of Arts & Antiques magazine for an
interesting article on the historical role of frames.
-Daniel of Rutland
From: Kirk Poore <xxxremovexxxkirkpoore at home.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Wood panels for paintings
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 22:23:01 GMT
von_landstuhl at yahoo.com wrote:
> I've been asked to make a 2x3 foot wood panel for a painting using 15th
> Century techniques. I know how these boards were edge joined to make
> wider panels, but does anyone know if they were cross-braced in the
> rear to prevent warpage?
>
> Thanks,
> Ulrich
Probably not, though it may have been done sometimes. The panels probably
would have been quarter-sawn, which doesn't warp as bad as typical
flat-sawn lumber you find now. Panels set into walls or furniture would be
held flat by the frame they were set into. Properly dried quartersawn
boards should not warp much if you take care to seal the back as well as
the painted surface. For example, if you're going to gesso your panel,
make sure you gesso the back too. Otherwise the back of the panel will
take in and loose moisture much more quickly from the front, so it will
tend to warp and then flatten out with changes in humidity. It's kind of
neat to see this--but it will lead to cracks in the gesso and your
painting.:)
If you're not going to put this panel into a piece of furniture, and don't
mind being a little unperiod, you can screw crossbracing to the back. Be
sure to put the screws through slotted holes on the bracing to allow the
panel to expand and contract naturally. Nails would be period, but they
wouldn't hold nearly as well as screws.
Kirk FitzDavid
From: Kirk Poore <xxxremovexxxkirkpoore at home.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Wood panels for paintings
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:11:20 GMT
Mandy wrote:
> > > Nails would be period, but they wouldn't hold nearly as well as screws.
>
> I missed this thread... but ohh, shudder at the thought of screws. I
> preferr joints and nails, but hate screws..... my husband , on the other
> hand, puts them in everything it seems.
> Griet
There are less jarring non-period possibilities also. For thick panels (3/4"
or more), you could use a router to carefully put a couple of dovetail slots
across the back, and then slide in a dovetail-shaped brace. Fasten each in the
center with a single nail or brad, and the panel can be braced while still
expanding and contracting freely.
Two other possibilities are breadboard ends (which may be period, but I have no
evidence of it), or tongue-and-grooved boards across the ends. Tongue and
groove is period and fairly easy to do, but I'd be a little concerned about the
long-term durability. Both of these solutions would also give you cross-grain
wood at the surface of the painting. You could hide them behind a regular
picture frame, but if you choose to paint over them you'll get a crack in the
paint as the main panel expands.
Kirk FitzDavid
From: Kirk Poore <xxxremovexxxkirkpoore at home.com>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Wood panels for paintings
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 22:59:51 GMT
"Anthony J. Bryant" wrote:
> Kirk Poore wrote:
>> There are less jarring non-period possibilities also. For thick panels (3/4"
>> or more), you could use a router to carefully put a couple of dovetail slots
>> across the back, and then slide in a dovetail-shaped brace. Fasten each in
>> the center with a single nail or brad, and the panel can be braced while
>> still expanding and contracting freely.
>
> That's how we prepare panels for icons.
>
> Less the nails, of course.
>
> Effingham
The nail is put in from the back, and just keeps the brace from sliding. It wouldn't go all the way through to the paint surface. Friction alone is probably good enough, however. Since you're talking about icons, is there a religious reason for not tacking down the brace piece?
Kirk
From: "Anthony J. Bryant" <ajbryant at indiana.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Wood panels for paintings
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 18:57:05 -0500
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Kirk Poore wrote:
> The nail is put in from the back, and just keeps the brace from sliding. It
> wouldn't go all the way through to the paint surface. Friction alone is
> probably good enough, however. Since you're talking about icons, is there a
> religious reason for not tacking down the brace piece?
Not that I know of. It's just not done. (We have been known to use glue, though.)
Effingham
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