Teresa Soley

p056r_a Vernis pour destrempe

Chandler 260 /04-26-16, 3:45pm-5:15pm
Preparation for experiment
Located oak board in lab from a previous student’s experiment
Used steel clams to secure board to lab countertop
Measured and marked with sharpie a measurement of 6 inches from the edge of the board (the board is 1 inch thick and 12 inches wide)
With assistance from Naomi Rosencranz, sawed 6-inch segment from end of board with a hacksaw. After separating 6-inch board from the larger board (which took a great effort due to the hardness of the wood and the inadequacy of the saw), sawed a shallow groove dividing the surface of the small board into two square areas.
Placed 6-inch board on a SW lab shelf for use in later experiment. Returned larger oak board to its location in the NW corner of lab.

Chandler 260 / 04-29-16, 10:30am-12:30pm

Step 1 Varnish Preparation
1.1. Preparation
Made sure SE fume hood is empty and switch on
Joel demonstrated concept of fume hood air-pull and how to safely work in a fume hood
Located and assembled glass mason jar, lid, and parafilm to store varnish after making. Labeled “Varnish – TERESA – Larch Turpentine + Spike-Lavender”
Set up hot plate and pot for double-boiler to heat RSG 10%, following procedure adapted from Marjolijn Bol, for use in following step (lake destrempe layer).
Set out Larch Turpentine 6200 and Spike-Lavender Oil 73800 in fume hood
Taped down sheet of newspaper in fume hood to serve as surface for varnish-making, to catch spills or drips and facilitate cleanup.
Labeled two 100ml beakers “Larch Turpentine” and “Spike-Lavender” and placed in fume hood

1.2. Varnish-making
- Pour 25ml of Spike-Lavender oil (Kremer 73800) into a labeled “Spike-Lavender” 100ml glass beaker in fume hood, place on newspaper. The spike-lavender oil (also known as Aspic Oil) is a transparent, aqueous oil that smells strongly of lavender.
- Scoop 50ml of Larch Turpentine (Kremer 6200) into a labeled “Larch Turpentine” 100ml beaker. The Larch Turpentine has the appearance and consistency of slightly solidified honey. Very resinous in nature and extremely sticky. It sticks to every surface it comes in contact with, and strings of it would blow around in the fume hood. It gives off a pleasant piney smell.
- I used a plastic knife and chopstick to scoop the Larch Turpentine in small amounts into from its original jar into the beaker. This was difficult and time consuming due to the extreme stickiness of the thick, viscous resin. I had to stop to dispose of my gloves and put on new gloves several times because they would get covered in the Larch Turpentine and transfer the sticky resin onto every surface that was touched.
- Poured the 25ml of Spike-Lavender oil into the beaker of 50ml of Larch Turpentine. As I stirred with a wood chopstick, the Spike Lavender immediately began breaking down the Larch Turpentine into a consistency more similar to honey, in that it was thick and partially solid but also flowed off the chopstick in a syrupy way. The rich gold combination is transparent with small bubbles in it, it looks like amber. The mixture continued to dissolve very easily. Within 3-4 minutes the mixture was completely unified (the Larch Turpentine had completely dissolved) resulting into a liquid, viscous mixture that is the consistency of maple syrup and a rich golden color.
The mixture was (easily) poured into the prepared, labeled glass mason jar “Varnish – TERESA – Larch Turpentine, Spike-Lavender”. I placed a layer of Parafilm over the top of the jar. Parafilm is better than plastic-wrap for this because it adheres to the surface and seals as a protective layer to prevent fumes from escaping. I then placed the metal lid over top of the Parafilm and tightly screwed the lid shut. I placed the sealed jar of varnish in the back of the fume hood during clean up, and later placed the jar underneath the fume hood with the Lab Inventory of turpentines, oils, etc.
1.3. Clean-up
The extremely sticky Larch Turpentine had adhered to any surface it had touched (often as the result of sticky gloves transferring the resin between surfaces). It could only be removed by being saturated with acetone, which completely dissolves the resin and enables its removal.
To clean the beakers I sprayed them with acetone, swished it around to pick up as much Larch Turpentine as possible, and poured it into the liquid turpentine waste container. Otherwise, the best way to clean up the Larch Turpentine was to saturate paper towels in acetone and saturate/wipe away the Larch Turpentine and Spike-Lavender oil, and then dispose of the paper towels in the solid hazardous waste container. The beakers were then washing in soap and water. And all materials were returned to their proper places in the lab. The sealed and labeled jar of varnish was stored underneath the SE fume hood.


Step 2 Lake Layers
2.1 Preparation
Workstation: lab countertop
- Laid down newspaper on lab countertop
- Laid out 6x 12 x 1 oak board on lab countertop (divided into two sections)
- Labeled “1” and “2” sections on surface of oak board. On side of board labeled “SOLEY – 52r VERNIS POUR DESTREMPE
- I will be using Brazilwood Lake A, Kremer Chalk from Champagne, and pre-made RSG 10%.
2.2. Destrempe layer
- In a 100ml beaker I combined Brazilwood Lake A (at a ratio of +/- 1:5) with Kremer Chalk from Champagne, mixing with a palette knife. The mixture is a dusky rose color, more purple than I envisioned (I was aiming for a “rosy pink).
- With a pipette, I added a small amount of RSG (about 20 ml).
- The mixture was very odd-looking, not at all what I was aiming for. It was very grayish in color and extremely watery, and became very frothy as I tried to incorporate the chalk and red lake powders into the liquid. It did not have the consistency of other distemper paints I had made in the lab previously. Jenny and I concluded that this solution was unusable and the glue was acceptable for use for this purpose. We discarded the mixture.
- Since we identified the faulty RSG 10% as the problem, we heated another container of RSG (15%) we found in the lab fridge. This batch of RSG was much more concentrated. There was only a very small amount left in the beaker but we decided to try to use it anyway. It did not dissolve very well in the double-boiler and was very thick so we added a small amount of water to try to dilute it for use.
- Meanwhile, I decided this time to mull the Brazilwood red lake and chalk because the previous attempt had been very grainy and did not combine well with the glue or water. On the water mulling glass I combined Kremer Chalk from Champagne and Brazilwood Lake A until I reached my desired color, something close to a ‘rosy pink.’ I then mulled the powdered materials with a bit of water, achieving a much smoother, pinker paint. The paint still had a greyish tinge, which may have been from the chalk, and still appeared slightly more purple than I had envisioned.
- In a 100ml beaker, I transferred this chalk-lake-water pigment with a palette knife and then with a pipette I added a small amount of the prepared RSG 15% and used a palette knife to combine all the ingredients. This distemper paint looked more similar to the distempers we had made in lab in the past and I deemed it ready for use on the oak boards.
- Using a broad, flat brush (small), I painted a single layer of this lake-distemper onto the Board 1 and Board 2 surfaces in an area of about 4x4 inches each. The paint was not ideal – it clumped together in gummy accumulations in some areas and spread too thin or seemed to be absorbed by the board too much in other areas and appeared transparent rather than opaque. This made Jenny and I question whether the boards should have had a priming or isolation layer such as gesso, something which is not specified in the artist-practioner’s recipe for 56r Vernis pour destrempe and was left open to conjecture for the moment.
- I placed the painted oak board on top of the newspaper on the lab countertop to dry until the next step. The distemper seemed to be drying fairly quickly, especially in the areas where the paint had become rather transparent. I noticed that the paint residue on the mulling glass where I had mixed the pigment had dried into a light pink color. The paint on the boards still appeared a darker purplish color, so I am interested to see what color they appear when fully dry.
Cleanup
I washed the beakers, mulling materials, brush, and palette knives with soap and water, and disposed of unused RSG mixture in the nonhazardous trash.