Grand-Grandfather's
Useful Antique Recipes
- all sorts of paints and
colors - 11
-
recipes from the 'Household
Cylopedia', 1881
- PAINTS AND COLORS -
• Compound for receiving the colors used in encaustic painting.
Dissolve 9 oz. of gum arabic in 1 pt. of water, add 14 oz. of finely powdered mastic and 10 oz. of white wax, cut in small pieces, and whilst hot, add by degrees 2 pts. of cold spring-water; then strain the composition.
Another method.
Mix 24 oz. of mastic with gum-water, leaving out the wax, and when sufficiently beaten and dissolved over the fire, add by degrees 1 1/2 pts. of cold water, and strain.
Or, dissolve 9 oz. of gum arabic in 1 1/2 pts. of water, then add 1 lb. of white wax. Boil them over a slow fire, pour them into a cold vessel, and beat them well together. When this is mixed with the colors, it will require more water than the others. This is used in painting, the colors being mixed with these compositions as with oil, adding water if necessary. When the painting is finished, melt some white wax, and with a hard brush varnish the painting, and, when cold, rub it to make it entirely smooth.
• Grecian method of painting on wax.
Take 1 oz. of white wax and 1 oz. of gum mastic, in drops, made into powder; put the wax into a glazed pan over a slow fire, and when melted add the mastic, then stir the same until they are both incorporated. Next throw the paste into water, and when hard take it out, wipe it dry, and beat it in a mortar; when dry pound it in a linen cloth till it is reduced to a fine powder. Make some strong gum-water, and when painting take a little of the powder, some color, and mix them all with the gum-water. Light colors require but a small quantity of the powder, but more must be put in proportion to the darkness of the colors, and to black there should be almost as much of the powder as of color.
Having mixed the colors, paint with water, as is practised in painting with water colors, a ground on the wood being first painted of some proper color, prepared as described for the picture. When the painting is quite dry, with a hard brush, passing it one way, varnish it with white wax, which is melted over a slow fire till the picture is varnished. Take care the wax does not boil. Afterwards hold the picture before a fire near enough to melt the wax, but not to run, and when the varnish is entirely cold and hard, rub it gently with a linen cloth. Should the varnish blister, warm the picture again very slowly, and the bubbles will subside.
back to top of the page
Parts of This text was taken from: http://members.xoom.com/mspong/paints.html
if you want to read more about antique recipes please visite their
web-site.
[ back
to technical art info
] [ back
to main page antique recipes ]
[ home
· entrance
·
contact
· about
me ·
what's
new · fine
art · digital
art ·
cd
cover ·
darkroom
· photography
· sculptures
]