Name: Teresa Soley and Lila Goldenberg
Date and Time: 2016.2.29 12:45-2:15om and 2016 3.2, 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Chandler 206
Subject: Working in distemper

http://making-and-knowing.wikischolars.columbia.edu/Goldenberg-Painting_With_Distemper

Materials:
- sample design (portrait of a man)
- prepared panel, primed with rabbit skin glue and under drawn in distemper
- various pigments in dismember (rabbit skin glue, chalk, and water), such as bavarian earth, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, lamp black, red ochre, brown earth, and sap green

Lila and I followed the example of our printed out 'portrait of a man' to try to replicate the colors by laying down layers of distemper pigments on our own version. We started with a layer of dark brown (brown earth, burnt sienna) and built up shades of greenish-yellow (yellow ochre and bavarian green) and pale pink (red ochre), etc. It was interesting how the dried paint changed in appearance compared to when it was fresh and wet. We also found it really important to wait until the paint was dry before adding another layer or color because the under-layers of paint really showed through and affected the look of subsequent paint layers. For example, the preliminary dark brown layer really showed through even out final layer of white highlights, adding depth and shadow to the modeling.
Mixing the pigments to achieve the desired color of paint was at time difficult. We particularly struggled to make a flesh-colored paint of the proper tone; our sample image had quite yellowish-green skin but we ended up with a much more rosy peach color (more realistic, but not as close to the sample). If we had more time and expertise it would have been good to make more colors and be able to really deliberately layer and hatch. Our final painting did not look very close to the original in terms of color, but we were quite satisfied with the overall outcome as it 'looked like a person.' It was difficult to maintain the contours of our underdrawing as we added more and more paint layers, so the final version does not bear a very close resemblance to features of the original face.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128418753@N06/25179215730/in/dateposted/