Historical Recipe Reconstruction

Location: OC's apartment (home portion), Lab
Subject: Verdigris

Personal field notes:

10% Acetic Acid solution with copper sheet suspended with tape/string in mason jar
First 4 days - kitchen counter
Remaining time - Stored on top of heater by window
noticed copper turning greenish after 1 day
noticed liquid was faintly blue after 5 days
water bright turquoise after 13 days

Lab:
5% and 10% acetic acid solution group (2 individuals with 10% acetic acid verdigris, 1 individual with 5% verdigris)

5% acetic acid solution -- this was verdigris already existing in lab, resulted from longer cultivation with more copper
10% acetic acid solution -- removed from copper plates suspended over acetic acid solution for 2 weeks

Equipment:
scraping knives, paper towels, stand oil, cold-pressed oil, turpentine, brushes, glass plate

Sources of ingredients: provided by lab

Temperatures: NA

5% acetic acid verdigris from lab:
Crushed particles
Added stand oil
Mixed and mulled
Painted onto gesso

10% acetic acid verdigris from mason jars stored at home:
Scraped verdigris from copper plates into plastic containers with dull knives
Divided 10% verdigris into two even piles
Mixed ½ of verdigris with stand oil and ½ with cold pressed oil
Painted each grouping onto gesso panels

Cleaning:
Cleaned glass plate with oil & paper towel first, then acetone
Cleaned brushes twice with oil, then with turpentine, then soap and water
Discarded paper towels, gloves, and plastic containers used for verdigris into hazardous waste bin
Discarded plastic containers used for oil

Images here

Preparing a Canvas

Name: Olivia
Date and Time:

2016.[Month].[Day], [hh]:[mm][am/pm]

Location: Lab & Home
Subject:

Materials:

Linen
Yarn
Fine thread
Needles (for yarn & thread)
Stretcher

Process:
Hemmed edges of raw linen panel, with twine inside edge of hem

Observations:
The sewing was very time-consuming (took 3-4 hours total), required a lot of force to get the needle to go through the linen, and required a lot of patience and trial and error to pull taut. When I had finished sewing the hem and moved onto threading the canvas to the wood stretcher, I began with a short length of yarn, but realized that sewing with individual pieces of yarn it would be difficult to adjust the tightness. I therefore did the rest of the yarn stitching with a single piece of very long yarn, which meant that if I noticed slack in the stretching process I could go back and tighten all around. I did this as needed until I had sewed around the entire canvas and it seemed quite taut. This method seemed to work well.

After the canvas was successfully stretched, I applied two layers of rabbit skin glue in the lab, waiting for the first to dry before applying the second (waited about 40 mins for drying time). The following session, the red earth & oil layer could be applied. This pigment was made by mixing red earth with linseed oil on a glass plate. It was difficult to tell what the ratio of oil to pigment/consistency should be, and because I needed to mix more as I went I think there is some inconsistency in my example since the ratio changed slightly as I went. However, I found this material enjoyable to work with, as it went on smoothly and has a rich, opaque color.

Pouncing & Image Transfer to Rabbit Skin Glue-Primed Panel

Materials:
Photocopied image (or drawn image)
Needle
Charcoal

Pen

In this experiment we used two methods of image transfer onto panel. Both involve using an already prepared image, in this case a photocopied image. In the first method, I used a needle to prick holes throughout my image (a man's face) along any prominent outlines. I found it helpful to hold the image up to the light occasionally as I went to see the outline I was creating and see areas I might otherwise miss. Since my needle was thickest at its top, I also made sure to put the needle nearly all the way through the paper in order to create large, clean holes in the paper. After completing the pouncing, the image was ready to be transferred onto charcoal. This could be done by affixing the image to a prepared surface (in this case a RSG primed panel) with a small amount of tape, then dusting charcoal gently over the image. The charcoal penetrates the holes in the pounced image and leaves behind an outline. At this point, the image is ready to be painted over with yellow ochre distemper (RSG base since the panel had been primed with RSG) or a black pigment, and the charcoal can subsequently be dusted or blown away.

The second method of image transfer also uses charcoal, but in a slightly different way. I affixed a photocopied image to the panel using tape on just the top of the image at first. Then I dusted charcoal over the panel under the image, and affixed the sides of the image with tape so that it covered the charcoal-coated panel. Next I traced the outlines of the image with a sharp implement (pen), pressing firmly but not with any unusual force. I repeated this until I had traced all of the relevant lines in the image. Then the photocopied image could be removed, and below was the image. At this point, I could softly blow the excess charcoal off the panel and be left with the outlines to trace in paint (yellow ochre with RSG base, as the panel had been primed with RSG). I found it very difficult to paint over the outlines without my hand smudging the charcoal -- I assume this would have been much easier if the panel had been on an easel or other vertical surface rather than on a table that I had to lean over.

Observations: The two methods definitely have advantages and disadvantages. The main difficulty with pouncing was that if you don't pounce enough, you're left with a rather amorphous outline that only gives you a sense of scale and not much detail. This could be useful if you're trying to just get very broad outlines of things or determine correct proportions, but it doesn't save you work in terms of detail later. The alternative is to do an extremely detailed pouncing, but doing so there were sometimes so many dots that I couldn't completely tell how they were supposed to be connected to each other. Tracing directly over the picture & charcoal seemed to allow more precision in this regard, but it's also a bit less predictable because it's easier to mess up your lines as you go. However, the stakes are low since it's only charcoal and can be corrected later in paint.

Painting with Distemper

Feb 29, March 3

Materials:
RSG
Pigments: ochre, chalk, rust, red earth, venetian red, green (?)
Hot water
Brushes
"Double boiler" (tin can with hot water surrounding vial with pigment)
Panel with transferred image

Following the instructions in folio 93v, we tried to follow a 16th century technique for distemper painting. We began with the panels that we had previously transferred an image of a man's face onto. The first step was to add shadows. Of course, this required mixing pigment with rabbit skin glue and water. Since the RSG dries very quickly if not heated, it was necessary to create a double boiler of hot water surrounding each vial of pigment; even with this, the distemper dried very quickly, including caking up on the brush as I painted, which made it extremely difficult to work with. I was also very unsure whether to do large swaths of color on the picture, as other groups seemed to be doing, or more cautious, detailed lines of shadow. I decided to go the more cautious approach, as this allowed me to see more of the underpainting and the lines of the face. After the shadows, the next step was to add in flesh tone. The instructions were to paint over the whole face with the flesh tone, noting that the shadows should show through. I found the paint to be quite opaque, though, so painting over completely with flesh tone decimated the detailed shadowing that I had done earlier. This may indicate that I needed to do darker shadows to begin with, or that the flesh color should have been much less opaque. I had the same problem when it came to adding the pinkish tones in the next step. Adding large areas of pink looked very odd and unnatural, and not at all like the image I was trying to replicate. I found that I needed to add back in some shadows, but the cross-hatching method described in the recipe didn't work well for me, perhaps because my brush was simply too large and clumsy. I also kept trying to adjust the color of the skin by mixing different flesh tones and highlights to add back in, but I wasn't successful at creating a naturalistic flesh color. Mostly, I was left with an appreciation of how difficult distemper is to work with and how precise you have to be with it.

Transferring Image onto Canvas

March 3, 2016

Materials:
Prepared canvas (with RSG, red earth, and lead white layers applied)
Pounced Image

For this experiment, I first pounced an image of a tulip. I may have "overpounced", but I found that in my first attempt at pouncing I left out a lot of the finer lines and ended up with a more amorphous outline than I would have liked, so I erred on the other side this time. After the image was completely pounced, I applied it to the canvas and brushed it with charcoal, allowing the outline to show through on the canvas. Next I used yellow ochre mixed with linseed oil to trace the charcoal pouncing in paint. At this point, I left the image to dry. I enjoyed working with the canvas and oil, which definitely feel easier to work with than panel and distemper. That said, the lead white on my panel was still rather tacky/not fully dry, so it may have different properties when it is drier.

Possible Recipes for Annotations

Group members: Olivia Clemens & Amy Chang
Themes: Gilding, Enameling, Illusionism/Technique

Preliminary list of recipes to investigate further....

Gilding/Painting with Metal and Imitation Metal:

Gold lettering on paper (p008r)
Layer of gold leaf on parchment or paper (p010v)
Cleaning gold leaf applied to a layer (p010v)
Applying unpolished gold (p011v)
Golden color without gold or silver (p029v)
Brown gold layer on paper (p029v)
Gold base (p029v)
To lay down some gold (p032r)
Backing for jewels (p037r)
Making bronze gold coloring (p073r)
Brown copper color (p073v)
Ground gold (p075r)
Making cheap and very beautiful gold color (p076v)
Recipe for making bronze and varnish of many sorts (p077r-p077v)
Making bronze steel coloring (p078v)
Making bronze color of gold (p078v)
Making bronze gold coloring (p079r)
To gild (p097r)
How to silver (p097r)
To gild painting frames without gold (p099v)
Golden color (p100r)
Corroding and dissolving absolutely pure gold (p104r)
Good mixture to color gold (p104r)

Enameling:

Enamel (p039v)
Lacquer (p044r)
Azur enamel with oil (p061v)
? Glazing (p065v)
Enamels (p103v)
Enameling carnelian (p104r)
Transparent red enamel (p124v)
Enamelling small works (p136r)
Lacquer (p165r)

Technique:

How to depict some crimp (p059v)
Clothes' folds (p059v)
Precise work (p060r)
To make things round (p061r)
Perspectives (p062r)
Men and animals in the background (p062r)
Portraits (p062r, p062v)
Perspectives (p062v)
? Training for the painter (p064v)
Straight lines (p064v)
Paint realistically (p065v)
Painting big figures (p065v)
To paint a realistic portrait (p100r)

Annotation Plans

Group 1:

Enameling & IMITATION GEMS-- Olivia Clemens, Amy Chang, Yuanxie Shi
Plan: Look at recipes for enamels & IMITATION (REALLY, IMITATION? SEE LAST SEMESTER'S ANNOTATIONS ON GEMS] jewel making, with special emphasis on how recipes are similar or different among these materials for making items of the same color (i.e. blue enamels from azurite compared with fake sapphire, etc)

Group 2:

Applications on paper -- Olivia Clemens & Lila Goldberg
Plan: Look at recipes that pertain to APPLICATIONS on paper, including inks to be used on paper, gilding on paper, tips and techniques for working on paper, etc.

ASPECTS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN MAKING FIELD NOTES

note time
note (changing) conditions in the room
note temperature of ingredients to be processed (e.g. cold from fridge, room temperature etc.)
document materials, equipment, and processes in writing and with photographs
notes on ingredients and equipment (where did you get them? issues of authenticity)
note precisely the scales and temperatures you used (please indicate how you interpreted imprecise recipe instruction)
see also our informal template for recipe reconstructions

Historical Recipe Reconstruction

Table of Contents

2016.1.31, 4:00pm-8:30pm

Subject: Historical Recipe Reconstruction