Paintbox

“ Mark looked about him. The studio, simply furnished, bare of those tapestries and properties which most painters buy as soon as they begin to earn money, was, in short, a workshop full of ingenious appliances for obtaining curious effects of colour, light and shade. In the middle of it stood a huge oak easel. Several large canvases were turned to the wall. An open paint-box, a palette, a bowl full of the coarse, broad brushes which Pynsent used, told Mark that work was about to begin. Pynsent took few holidays. Work had become to him not a means to an end, but the end itself. ”

“ Too much light will be sure to interfere with the proper control of light and shade on your model, and too little will make your painting too dark. The position of the window with reference to the shape of the room has to do with this. The most probable form of a room is long and narrow. For painting it is better that the window be in the middle of the end wall, high up, rather than in the middle of the side wall. You will find that you can more easily get distance from your model, and at the same time get the light both on him and on your canvas. But a painting-room should not be too narrow. ”

“ Next get some canvas forty inches wide. Coat it well with boiled oil, dry it thoroughly, and placing the lower edge of your framework along its centre, strain it up tight all round. Use copper nails to fasten it with, and running a streak of paint along its lower edge, finish it there with a thin oak batten, steamed to shape if necessary, and screwed on outside while the paint is wet, so as to serve for protection and form the keel. Now give your pontoon a good even coat of paint, and when that is thoroughly dry give it a trial coat of any colour you please. ”

“ PREFACE THE observant visitor to the great art galleries is astonished and pained to see the large number of pictures of the highest artistic excellence gradually being ruined on account of decomposition as shown by fading, darkening, cracking and peeling of the paint films. This is all the more deplorable because the cause of the deterioration is well known and pigments, vehicles, canvas, in fact all the materials needed by the painter to make absolutely permanent paintings are equally well known and require only intelligent choice and use by the artist. ”

“ Panelling, rough inlaying in the solid, carving and painting, and casing with repoussé or pierced metal, or covering with leather incised into designs, and making out patterns with nail-heads, were all methods of decoration used by the maker of boxes: other examples, and those not the least stately, had no other ornament than the purfling at the edges formed by ingeniously elaborate dovetails fitting together like a puzzle and showing a pattern like an inlay.
When people work naturally, it is as wearisome and unnecessary often to repeat the same design as to continually paint the same picture. ”

“ Nothing restricts a man like paint does. No use of it, as it just confuses and restricts. I knew a man who was so restricted by paint, that he had to move to another city ...
- What do you mean?
- Yes, very simple. Mildyaev is his name. Where is your picture?
- Here it hangs. Looks very fresh and clever, does it?
II To give a credit to the young maestro with a pink rash, he has escaped paint in the most positive way: on the wall there hung a black metal tray, in the middle of which with some adhesive material a small dead rat was attached. ”

“ Use whatever kind of a paint-brush seems best fitted, and work rapidly that the paint may not dry. A fine soft sponge will give excellent foliage effects; this should be dipped in the paint and simply dabbed on the glass. A clean cotton rag will take off extra paint and is especially useful where water is represented in the picture. By dragging the rag or sponge over a surface too thickly painted you can loosen it and give the appearance of grass and shrubbery, or of a roadway. ”

“ The rough plaster wall, tinted, is the cheapest method of all to use in decoration and has numerous advantages. It is much to be preferred to smooth plaster in that it gives a slight unevenness of surface which is a distinct advantage because of the vibration of color thus attained. Water color, while it does not last as long as oil paint, is so much cheaper and quicker to put on that it becomes possible to do over a gallery after a year or two without any more outlay than oil paint in the beginning would have necessitated. ”

“ Your boxes then must be coloured either white, red, stone colour, or dark brown. In the white use either white paint—flat, not shining, or if that cost too much trouble and money, whitewash made of whitening, size, hot water and a pinch of yellow ochre or chrome powder to give it a pleasant ivory creaminess. There should be a good deal of size so that the whitewash does not come off on every thing.
The red boxes can be painted to match the red bricks, or colour-washed (whitewash as before, but red ochre for colour) . ”

“ If you can manage to have a room to yourself, however small, so much the better. Darken all the windows but the one at which you have your easel. A northern exposure is to be preferred, as the light is more even. If painting from nature, the lower part of the window should be darkened, in order to give the proper effects of light and shade. Your palette should be light and fit your hand comfortably. Nos. 2, 4, 6, and 9, flat red sable brushes, one flat bristle brush, and one badger blender No. ”

“ The Lamp Black should be added in oil without the addition of any further varnish or drier. But this must, of course, be applied over the glue size heretofore mentioned, and at the end of a week the painting can be restretched and will show no corrugations or buckling.
In spite of wood being a more durable painting material than canvas, artists prefer canvas, simply on account of the difference in surface; for, the twill of the canvas gives the pigment an unevenness which causes it to reflect and refract light, much to the advantage of the painting. ”

“ Again, a door that has been exposed to the weather for some years, and from which the paint has, perhaps, almost wholly departed, will require a different mixture to a front door from which the accumulation of old paint, extending, perhaps, to over one hundred years, has been burnt off. Precisely in the same way as patent medicines cannot be safely used for any and every complaint, so it is impossible to have paints that will suit any and every purpose. ”

“ In a carefully framed picture where the back is sealed so as to keep the dust from the canvas there should be small holes for ventilation in the side of the frame. These may be covered on the inside with cheese-cloth or stuffed with cotton wool to keep out the dust. If a painting is in a precarious condition it is sometimes put in an air-tight case with glass front. This case is usually made the exact size of the picture and just deep enough to allow for the frame. ”

“ The child, when he gets a paint-box, as a rule, begins quite right, although he does it unconsciously. He will paint his picture-book with a red face, yellow coat, and blue decorations. Most likely you will find him disdain all mixtures, except perhaps green, which impresses him as nice—no doubt from its association with the fields, where he likes to run about and play. ”

“ It is rather a curious thing that the avoidance of leading, the dependence upon glazing and paint, should manifest itself especially in windows designed on such a scale that it would have been quite easy to get all that was got in paint, and more, by the introduction of coloured glass; in windows, for example, on the scale of those at King’s College, Cambridge, with figures much over lifesize, where the artist, you can see, has been afraid of leading, and has shirked it. ”

“ Fireproof scenery or scenery which will at least not flame, is a practical possibility now. The building code should compel the use of scenery on frames of light metal covered with canvas that has been saturated in a fireproof solution. Fireproof paint is compulsory on the woodwork behind the proscenium wall, but in painting scenery combustible paint may be used. ”

“ By means of the Pentagraph, which is much employed, the largest engravings are reduced to the size most convenient for the workman, without injuring the prints in the slightest degree; and hence a snuff-box manufacturer, like a Dunfermline weaver, can work to order by exhibiting on wood his employer's coat of arms, or in short, any object he may fancy within the range of the pictorial art. Some of the painters display considerable talent, and as often as they choose to put forth their strength, produce box-lids, which are really worthy of being preserved as pictures. ”

“ This defect is well recognized among house painters and piano and cabinet varnishers, and therefore it becomes necessary to roughen the surface, so that the new coat of paint will adhere. There are some mediums on the market for this purpose, but with a little care no medium is needed other than pure water; and I have heard the statement that by rubbing the surface of a painting with a stiff brush that has been dipped in water and allowing that surface to dry thoroughly, new paint will take over the old as if by magic. ”

“ It is seldom that one mix of paint will answer for all parts of the building. Portions of the house that are the most exposed and weather-beaten should receive the most elastic coat of paint. Portions that are protected, like under porches and verandas, and portions shielded by trees and other buildings, which would render them in about the same condition as under verandas, should receive a coat of paint mixed so as to penetrate the old surface and dry hard and firm without high gloss. ”

“ Indeed, neither the truant nor the studious is at present taught color in the schools. These are instead of the bright colors in apothecaries' shops and city windows. It is a pity that we have no more Red Maples, and some Hickories, in our streets as well. Our paint-box is very imperfectly filled. Instead of, or beside, supplying such paint- boxes as we do, we might supply these natural colors to the young. ”

“ The ingredients for making about 40 pounds of best paint for indoors, tinted to a French gray color, would be 28 pounds of genuine white lead, 3 pounds of patent driers, about 1⁄2 gallon of raw linseed oil, and 1 quart of turpentine. Mix up the lead and driers with a broad stick to the consistency of a thick paste, using linseed oil. If all is to be tinted one color, for French gray add a little ultramarine blue and either a little Venetian red or lamp black. If a warm gray is wanted, add the red, if a cool metallic tint, add the black. The ultramarine can only be bought in powder ”

“ Spread papers or oil cloth to protect mother’s furniture and carpets from paint.
Choose a place to put your furniture while it is drying, where no one is liable to put other things which might be damaged by the paint.
Use a screw driver to pry off the cover of the paint can; scissors or knife will break if used for this purpose.
Use a small stick like a meat skewer or old pen-holder to stir your paint from the bottom. It will need to be stirred thoroughly each time it is used. ”

“ However, in the movies one is spared the color of such a room; one may see that the wallpaper is of hideous design, but one cannot see its ghastly scrambled browns and greens and purples. As I glanced at the various furnishings it seemed to me that each was uglier than the last, and when finally my eye fell upon an automatic piano in a sort of combination of dark oak and art nouveau, with a stained glass front and a nickel in the slot attachment, my dream of a setting for sumptuous and esthetic sin was dead. ”

“ Stone colour is not a very satisfactory tint and too much of it makes for gloom. The lids and bottoms of the brick boxes will generally give you as much of it as you want. But if you desire stone colour you can make it by [137] putting a pinch of raw umber in the whitewash. Or you can paint your boxes with this uninteresting tint—resembling the doors of back kitchens. With these paints or colour-washes you can make your odd many-shaped boxes into smooth-surfaced blocks to match your bricks: and not only wooden, but cardboard boxes can be treated in this way. ”

“ When you take canvases out-doors to work, you will find it useful to strap two together, face inwards, with a double-pointed tack like this in each corner to keep them apart. You will not have any trouble with the fresh paint, as each canvas will then protect the other. ”

“ The box containing the stage should be 14 in. by 7 in. by 7-1/2 in., inside dimensions. The box need not be made of particularly good wood, as the entire interior, with the exception of the glass, figures and lights, should be colored a dull black. This can well be done by painting with a solution of lampblack in turpentine. If everything is not black, especially the joints and background near A, the illusion will be spoiled. ”

“ When you have finished carving both the head and hands you are ready to paint them. You will need red, yellow, blue, and white oil paints. Use a piece of smooth wood or glass for a palette. Squeeze onto your palette a small amount of each color. As you know, people do not have pure-white skins. There is a tinge of yellow-orange in the white man’s skin, deep red and orange in that of the red man, brown in that of the Negro, and yellow in that of the Oriental. Begin by squeezing out onto your palette a small quantity of white paint. ”