Grand-Grandfather's
Useful Antique Recipes
- all sorts of paints and
colors 2
-
recipes from the 'Household
Cylopedia', 1881
- PAINTS AND COLORS -
• To paint in White distemper.
Grind fine in water Bougival white, a kind of marl or chalky clay, and mix it with size. It may be brightened by a small quantity of indigo, or charcoal-black.
• To make White paint.
The White destined for varnish or oil requires a metallic oxide, which gives more body to the color. Take ceruse, reduced to powder, and grind it with oil of pinks and 1/4 oz. of sulphate of zinc for each pound of oil. Apply the second coating without the sulphate of zinc, and suffer it to dry. Cover the whole with a stratum of sandarac varnish. This color is curable, brilliant and agreeable to the eye.
Boiled linseed oil might be employed instead of oil of pinks, but the color of it would in some degree injure the purity of the white.
Another method.
White is prepared also with pure white oxide of lead, ground with a little essence, added to oil of pinks and mixed with gallipot varnish. The color may be mixed also with essence diluted with oil, and without varnish, which is reserved for the two last coatings. If for a lively white, the color is heightened with a little Prussian blue or indigo, or with a little prepared black. The latter gives it a gray cast. But pure white lead, the price of which is much higher than ceruse, is reserved for valuable articles. In this particular case, if a very fine durable white be required, grind it with a little essence, and mix it with sandarac or varnish.
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• To paint in Light Gray and distemper.
Ceruse, mixed with a small quantity of lamp-black, composes a gray, more or less charged, according to the quantity of black. With this matter, therefore, mixed with black in different doses, a great variety of shades may be formed, from the lightest to the darkest gray.
If this color be destined for distemper, it is mixed with water; if intended for oil painting, it is ground with nut-oil, or oil of pinks, and with essence added to oil, if designed for varnish. This color is durable and very pure, if mixed with camphorated mastic varnish; the gallipot varnish renders it so solid that it can bear to be struck with a hammer, if, after the first stratum it has been applied with varnish, and without size. For the last coating sandarac varnish, and camphorated varnish are proper; and for the darkest gray, spirituous sandarac varnish.
• To make Flaxen Gray.
Ceruse, or white lead, still predominates in this color, which is treated as the other grays, but with this difference, that it admits a mixture of lake instead of black. Take the quantity, therefore, of cernse necessary, and grind it separately. Then mix it up, and add the lake and Prussian blue, also ground separately. The quantities of the last two colors ought to be proportioned to the tone of color required.
This color is proper for distemper, varnish, and oil painting. For varnish, grind it with mastic gallipot varnish, to which a little oil of pinks has been added, and then mix it up with common gallipot varnish. For oil painting, grind with unprepared oil of pinks, and mix up with resinous drying nut-oil. The painting is brilliant and solid.
When the artist piques himself upon carefully preparing those colors which have splendor, it will be proper, before he commences his labor, to stop up the holes formed by the heads of the nails in wainscoting with putty. Every kind of sizing which, according to usual custom, precedes the application of varnish, ought to be prescribed as highly prejudicial, when the wainscoting consists of firwood. Sizing maybe admitted for plaster, but without any mixture. A plain stratum of strong glue and water spread over it, is sufficient to fill up the pores to prevent any unnecessary consumption of the varnish.
The first stratum of color is ceruse without any mixture, ground with essence added to a little oil of pinks, and mixed up with essence. If any of the traces are uneven, rub it lightly, when dry, with pumice-stone. This operation contributes greatly to the beauty and elegance of the polish when the varnish is applied.
The second stratum is composed of ceruse changed to flaxen gray by the mixture of a little Cologne earth, as much English red or lake, and a particle of Prussian blue. First, so make the mixture with a small quantity of ceruse, that the result shall be a smoky gray, by the addition of the Cologne earth. The red, which is added, makes it incline to fleshcolor, and the Prussian blue destroys the latter to form a dark flaxen gray. The addition of ceruse brightens the tone. This stratum and the next are ground, and mixed up with varnish as before.
This mixture of colors, which produces flaxen gray, has the advantage over pearl gray, as it defends the ceruse from the impression of the air and light, which makes it assume a yellowish tint. Flaxen gray, composed in this manner, is unalterable. Besides, the essence which forms the vehicle of the first stratum contributes to bring forth a color, the tone of which decreases a little by the effect of drying. This observation ought to serve as a guide to the artist, in regard to the tint, which is always stronger in a liquid mixture than when the matter composing it is extended in a thin stratum, or when it is dry.
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Parts of This text was taken from: http://members.xoom.com/mspong/paints.html
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