Grand-Grandfather's
Useful Antique Recipes
- all sorts of paints and colors - 1 -
recipes
from the 'Household Cylopedia', 1881
- PAINTS AND COLORS -
All simple or compound colors, and all the shades of color which nature or art can produce, and which might be thought proper for the different kinds of painting, would form a very extensive catalogue, were we to take into consideration only certain external characters, or the intensity of their tint. But art, founded on the experience of several centuries, has prescribed bounds to the consumption of coloring substances, and to the application of them to particular purposes. To cause a substance to be admitted into the class of coloring bodies employed by painters, it is not sufficient for it to contain a color; to brightness and splendor it must also unite durability in the tint or color which it communicates.
1. TO MAKE BLACK PAINT.
Usage requires attention in the choice of the matters destined for black. The following are their properties:
Black from peach-stones is dull.
Ivory-black is strong and beautiful when it has been well attenuated under the muller.
Black from the charcoal of beech-wood, ground on porphyry, has a bluish tone. Black furnished by the charcoal of vine-twigs, ground on porphyry, is weaker, and of a dirty gray color when coarse and alone, but it becomes blacker the more the charcoal has been divided. It then forms a black very much sought after, and which goes a great way.
Lampblack may be rendered mellower by making it with black which has been kept an hour in a state of redness in a close crucible. It then loses the fat matter which accompanies this kind of soot.
• To make paints from Lampblack.
The consumption of lampblack is very extensive in common painting, It serves to modify the brightness of the tones of the other colors, or to facilitate the composition of secondary colors. The oil paint applied to iron grates and railing, and the paint applied to paper snuff-boxes, to those made of tin-plate, and to other articles with dark grounds, consume a very large quantity of this black. Great solidity may be given to works of this kind by covering them with several coatings of the fat turpentine, or golden varnish, which has been mixed with lampblack, washed in water, to separate the foreign bodies introduced into it by the negligence of the workmen who prepare it.
After the varnish is applied the articles are dried in a stove by exposing them to a heat somewhat greater than that employed for articles of paper. Naples yellow, which enters into the composition of black varnish, is the basis of the dark brown observed on tobacco-boxes of plate-iron, because this color changes to brown when dried with the varnish.
• To make a superior Lampblack.
Suspend over a lamp a funnel of tin plate having above it a pipe to convey from the apartment the smoke which escapes from the lamp. Large mushrooms, of a very black, carbonaceous matter, and exceedingly light, will be formed at the summit of the cone. This carbonaceous part is carried to such a state of division as cannot be given to any other matter, by grinding it on a piece of porphyry.
This black goes a great way in every kind of painting. It may be rendered drier by
calcination in close vessels.
The funnel ought to be united to the pipe, which conveys off the smoke, by means of wire, because solder would be melted by the flame of the lamp.
• To make Black from ground pitcoal.
The best for this purpose is that which has a shining fracture. It affords, perhaps, the most useful brown the artist can place on his palet, being remarkably clear, not so warm as Vandyke brown, and serving as a shadow for blues, reds, or yellows, when glazed over them. It seems almost certain that Titian made large use of this material. Coal, when burnt to a white heat, then quenched in water, and ground down, gives an excellent blue black. This belongs to artists' colors.
• To make Black from wine-lees.
This black results from the calcination of wine-lees and tartar, and is manufactured on a large scale in some districts of Germany, in the environs of Mentz, and even in France. This operation is performed in large cylindric vessels, or in pots, having an aperture in the cover to afford a passage to the smoke, and to the acid and alkaline vapors which escape during the process. When no more smoke is observed, the operation is finished. The remaining matter, which is merely a mixture of salts and a carbonaceous part very much attenuated, is then washed several times in boiling water, and it is reduced to the proper degree of fineness by grinding it on porphyry.
If this black be extracted from dry lees, it is coarser than that obtained from tartar, because the lees contain earthy matters which are confounded with the carbonaceous part.
This black goes a great way, and has a velvety appearance. It is used chiefly by copper-plate printers.
Another method.
Peach-stones, burnt in a close vessel,, produce a charcoal, which, when ground on porphyry, is employeed in painting to give an old gray.
Another method.
Vine twigs reduced to charcoal give a bluish black, which goes a great way. When mixed with white it produces a silver white which is not produced by other blacks; it has a pretty near resemblance to the black of peach stones, but to bring this color to the utmost degree of perfection, it must be carefully ground on porphyry.
• To make Ivory and Boneblack.
Put into a crucible surrounded by burning coals, fragments or turnings of ivory, or of the osseous parts of animals, and cover it closely. The ivory or bones, by exposure to the heat, will be reduced to charcoal. When no more smoke is seen to pass through the joining of the cover, leave the crucible over the fire for half an hour or longer, or until it has completely cooled. There will then be found in it a hard carbonaceous matter, which, when pounded and ground on porphyry with water, is washed on a filter with warm water and then dried. Before it is used it must be again subjected to the matter.
Black furnished by bones is reddish. That produced by ivory is more beautiful. It is brighter than black obtained from peach-stones. When mixed in a proper dose with white oxide of lead, it forms a beautiful pearl gray. Ivory-black is richer. The Cologne and Cassel-black are formed from ivory.
• Fine Black color.
Take some camphor and set it on fire; from the flame will arise a very dense smoke, which may be collected on a common saucer by holding it over the flame. This black, mixed with gum arabic, is far superior to most India-ink.
Miniature painters, who use colors in small quantities, sometimes obtain a most beautiful and perfect black by using the buttons which form on the snuff of a candle when allowed to burn undisturbed. These are made to fall into a small thimble, or any other convenient vessel which can be immediately covered with the thumb, to exclude the air. This is found to be perfectly free from grease, and to possess every desirable quality.
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