The Silverpoint Composite Underdrawing
June 6, 2022
Silverpoint on tinted acrylic ground. 3 1/2 feet wide by 5 1/2 feet tall or 106 cm x 168 cm.
I’ve finally completed the sixty-four silverpoint underdrawings in preparation for a painting – as yet to come. The panels were developed individually – and were based on black and white sectionals of a photograph. The MDF panels were all prepared with an acrylic ground tinted with a mixture of dry pigments to simulate terre verte, because the actual dry pigment, terre verte, reacts negatively with acrylic rendering it unworkable – in that particular medium. Of course, I could have used a tint of white for my ground colour but I already knew how much I enjoyed working from a toned ground. The silver lines could be used to subtly create linear form while then the addition of an acrylic wash of white highlights could help it to “pop”! In addition, I coated each tinted gesso panel with a transparent covering of Golden’s Pastel Ground, in order to create a fuzzy toothiness.
Assembling the panels on the backing board.
Now, since this level has been completed I’ve encountered two main problems-to-solve: 1) in the areas of darkest value which required a lot of cross-hatching of the silver particles, the image possesses a reflective sheen. Is it possible to minimise this reflectivity?; 2) even though silverpoint has the reputation for leaving an indelible mark, I have found that that is not really the case. Both water and a kneaded eraser can, in fact, diminish the image. So, before I proceed any further, I want to “fix” the drawing. What material should I use to do this? A traditional pastel fixative or a matte acrylic varnish? In addition, would this proposed fixative help to diminish my sheen problem?
After some research and consultation with the expert folks at the University of Delaware’s MITRA forum, I have decided to spray an adequate covering of Lascaux (an acrylic medium containing B-72) Fixative over the whole assemblage before proceeding any further. Because I anticipate further layers of abstraction, using a Liquitex transparent titanium white spray over the image my silver sheen issue may take care of itself?
Fast forward to a few months later. The fixative, fixed, and the matte spray pain reduced the sheen.
What remained was for me to throw some paint at it.
Underdrawings in silverpoint, batch #3
October 8, 2021
Pieces of Me #36, silverpoint underdrawing on toned ground tightened with acrylic
After a long hiatus (at least from posting here) I’ve got another batch of silverpoint underdrawings to publish. These were created during our recent trip to California – in my new studio there. The new studio is in our garage, so besides the new working-space, I envision that I will have more room to create larger pieces there (who needs cars anyway?). My current working-space here in Belgium exists in a long rear hallway to the house. It measures about 4 x 10 feet but since Euro-compression-design rules the day I have been able to pack many useful features into it. Still. it’s cramped.
Pieces of Me #58, silverpoint underdrawing over toned ground tightened with acrylic
When I began this project I knew of course that the silverpoint pencil nib is quite restrictive, so the challenge in these panels was how to render various highly textured, amorphous and abstract shapes with a very fine, low in value line. Mostly impossible. For many of these compositions then, if I were to use just silverpoint, I’d have only very flat uninteresting underdrawings to offer. But since they are executed on a toned ground, the addition of the while highlights (using tubes of titanium white acrylic) allows for greater manipulations. Washes quickly establish the tonality, texture and gesture – things which are otherwise very difficult to achieve in silverpoint alone.
Pieces of Me #38, silverpoint underdrawing over toned ground hightened with white
The silverpoint then establishes the basics of the design and hints toward the darker values, while the white moves the image forward. I enlisted the help not only of brushes but also sponges, hands and fingers. And since each panel is about the size of a standard book, I could rotate the panel to get my washes to drip in whatever direction I needed. Nice. That’s really hard to do with a big panel or canvas. 😉
Pieces of Me #57, silverpoint underdrawing on toned ground tightened with white
All in all I created fourteen panels during this recent time. They are still resting in their little beds in California, however I was able to take some photographs of them before leaving. I’m hoping to put the whole series together there during our next trip, where I will have enough space in that garage to throw some paint at the final assemblage. As ever, we’ll see.
Colour by Victoria Finlay: a book report
June 13, 2021
Colour by Victoria Finlay
I recently reread this treasure from my book shelf. It was as entertaining now as it was almost fifteen years ago at my first discovery. For anyone interested in colour, professional or otherwise, I highly recommended it. It’s written by a well informed storyteller, who roams the planet in search of the animal-vegetable-mineral sources that have been used for centuries to express the rainbow spectrum of human thoughts, tactile feelings and animating emotions. It’s about pigments then, as well as their wearable counterparts in the form of dyes.
Although the book itself is light on theory, the author organises her material according to the spectrum of RGB additive light (I wrote about that a few years ago here). That theory recognises white light as the cumulative ‘colour’ achieved by adding together the separated spectral components of red, green and blue light. Additive light theory exists in contrast to subtractive. Subtractive light/colour theory states the opposite, that is, the cumulative ‘colour’ achieved by adding its primaries (red, yellow and blue paint) is black. Subtractive light/color exists in the world of reflection, such that whatever colour we perceive is actually a reflection of the spectral wavelengths that any particular object does not absorb. For example, an apple absorbs mainly green and blue light, so it reflects red. We learn to mix the colours of subtractive light in kindergarten while later on we experience the more sophisticated cyan-magenta-yellow-black of commercial printing.
Since we are all children of light, internally I think we dream in coloured light (that is, in additive light), even though when we start to create (or recreate) those internal images on opaque and reflective surfaces, we use subtractive colour mixing. We try to travel back up the rainbow. That’s why the final result of even a well crafted image can often be disappointing – at least to the artist – for it never quite matches the inner imagination. In any case, it’s important to be aware of both models. Clearly Victoria is guided and inspired by the rainbow colours of additive light, while she so passionately explores the materials of the earth which reflect its hues subtractively. There’s a story here, too, for many of these organic dyes and inorganic minerals are increasingly being replaced by their synthetic counterparts. Qualitatively, the differences may be great or they may be small, so much depends on subtlety and the test of time. Thus, though she doesn’t seem to have an axe to grind, she knows what she likes.
The tales of this itinerant traveler then make for an appealing and not too technical read. She is imaginative and more adventurous than many (for example, she traveled in the early 2000’s to areas of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan in order to see its storied mines of lapis lazuli). I especially appreciated her recognition of the importance of tactile sensitivity – in the creation of art – and in the discovery of the materials it uses. She states:
“When we see a finished painting we tend to assess it for such things as composition, emotion, colour and perspective. But what the artist experiences moment by moment in his or her turpentine-smelling studio is the scrape or smear or splatter or stir of one substance against another. Does the artist think of butter or tiramisu or of diesel as the paint is applied? Or does the laying down of paint happen without mental images at all? It depends, of course, entirely upon the individual. But either way, painting is sometimes an entirely tactile act where time is forgotten, and it is sometimes a paint’s ability to drip – or not to drip- and the colours it goes with rather than its propensity to poison which has been the deciding factor in whether it is welcomed on the painter’s palette. As James Elkins writes in ‘What Painting Is’, where he explores the parallels between painting and alchemy: ‘A painter knows what to do by the tug of the brush as it pulls through a mixture of oils, and by the look of the coloured slurries on the palette'” (pg. 146)
I call this factor the muladhara chakra, or gevoelsmatig bewustzijn or aesthetic consciousness or quite simply, like Victoria, tactile sensitivity. In any case, in this sense she’s clearly a writer after my own heart.
Underdrawings in silverpoint, batch #2
June 3, 2021
Silverpoint #05 over toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.
I’ve completed six more panels, so I figure it’s time for an update. Illustrated here are a few of those that I that have found to be particularly interesting/beautiful for various reasons. The most evocative seem to be those whose compositions include human beings or parts thereof. It’s as though each one is from some unwritten comic book – captions not included. (Hergé would have understood.) Additionally, the abstract panels cause me to wonder/admire anew at how the iconoclastic impulse of Islamic art continues to produce such interesting varieties of texture and pattern.
Silverpoint #08 over toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.
Further, one very general note. I feel I am serendipitously creating 21st century daguerreotypes(!). (Who knew?) It’s as though by using silver to recreate images based on a digital photograph the mechanistic process has come full circle: human to machine back to human. And again, because the drawing stylus is silver it’s almost impossible to achieve a line darker than a 50% grey value. All values are compressed thereby, necessitating a multitude of small decisions. Then, adding in the white highlights truly makes each panel come alive. That’s my artist’s pleasure.
Silverpoint #11 over toned gesso ground. 13.3 x 21 cm or 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.
Finally, the raison d’être for these remains as underdrawings. And I have no doubt that their beauty and subtlety will contribute to the whole in yet-to-be-experienced ways. (Can’t wait) However, because of their beauty and subtlety – which at least compositionally I don’t take credit for – some will be held back for individual display and appreciation. For this, I think I have a plan…
Underdrawings in silverpoint, batch #1
May 12, 2021
Panel #10. Silverpoint underdrawing over tinted gesso, highlighted with white. 13.3 cm x 21 cm, or 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.
I’ve been doing some underdrawings for a new project. It will be a different approach to the same image/subject matter as the “A Piece of Me” project, completed in December 2020.
Panel #01. Silverpoint underdrawing over tinted gesso, highlighted with white. 13.3 cm x 21 cm, or 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.
However, instead of being executed in a full textural and chromatic range this one will be untextured, monochromatic and ghosted back. It will be done in silverpoint on acrylic and overpainted (in acrylic or oil, TBD) on sixty four panels.
Illustrated here is a selection of some of the individual panels I’ve created so far, along with some of my notes. 1) Using silver point means that I can never reach a rich dark value (SP is not india ink!). So that’s fantastic and exactly what I’m looking for. 2) In addition, since I’m creating them on already tinted grounds, the darkest values provide less contrast than if I were starting from a white ground. Again, excellent! 3) The tinted ground itself establishes a middle value and allows me to lay in white washes for the highlights. 4) Inevitably, the value range is compressed and subtlety reigns. Nice. That’s how I like it.
Panel #02. Silverpoint underdrawing over tinted gesso, highlighted with white. 13.3 cm x 21 cm, or 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.
Also, even though these are intended as underdrawings I can already see that, when the composition warrants it, a few of them are or will be worthy of individual display – though I’m not sure how I’ll handle that. Should I create them (only) for integration into the final piece? Or should I create some for appreciating in isolation (only)? It’s a great problem to have which, for the moment, I don’t have to solve. I can simply create the little panels, fall in love and see where it all goes
Preparing Grounds for Silverpoint
April 25, 2021
The winning test panel. Silverpoint over tinted acrylic gesso, treated with GOLDEN Pastel Ground, highlighted with acrylic titanium white. 13.3 cm x 21 cm, or 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.
I’ve been doing a number of tests in preparation for an upcoming project. It will consist of a series of uniformly sized HDF panels prepared with a tinted ground upon which I intend to create images executed in silverpoint. These silverpoint images will be touched up with white (probably gouache). Since silverpoint does not create a strong dark line (that’s part of its beauty) I wanted to create tinted grounds that were not too dark, say, between a 10 – 20% grey value. The silverpointed strokes could softly emerge from this but never become stronger than a 40-50% value. Likewise the highlights could softly arise in the opposite direction, creating a nuanced chiaroscuro effect. Further, I imagined the hue of the background to be a terre verte. Since I planned to create a series of these panels whose grounds should be uniform I wanted to create a tint which could be reproducible across the whole series.
Relative to the ground itself, silverpoint requires a drawing surface prepared with a significant amount of “tooth” to catch the silver of the stylus. The substrate for that ground can be flexible or inflexible. The grounds for flexible substrates, such as paper or cloth, then need to create this tooth while also remaining somewhat flexible. Such grounds tend to be acrylic based (though this rule is, in itself, not inflexible). The grounds for inflexible substrates possess more latitude. They can be acrylic or traditional (based on rabbit skin glue), these latter tend to be more brittle. In the case of this project, since I had already chosen HDF, I had a range of media to choose from.
Additionally, contrary to what the word “tooth” might seem to imply, it does not so much refer to the texture of the ground as it does to its hardness. Because the silver (or any metal point) creates its mark by leaving tiny deposits of metal, the hardness of the pigment filler suspended in that ground is what provides this tooth. The carrier might be acrylic or rabbit skin glue while for the filler an array of white pigment particles may be used. These may include mixtures of chalk whiting (calcium carbonate), titanium white and/or zinc white. After it dries, the ground may be polished smooth or left with a bit of texture – artist’s choice. Experience quickly demonstrates that small, meditative motions of the stylus create soft, almost indelible lines whose value intensity increases only with repetition – not pressure.
At the outset of this project then, I had a few questions to answer:
- Since I already knew I would be using an inflexible substrate, should I use an acrylic based carrier or a traditional rabbit skin glue for my gesso? In theory, both might be appropriate.
- If acrylic, how should I introduce my tint? Terre verte in dry pigment form is known to be chemically incompatible with acrylics, so mixing up a combination of other pigments in an aqueous dispersion would be my best option.
- Alternatively, if I choose RSG as my carrier how do I introduce the tint? From a technical point of view, terre verte could be added to the dry pigment filler base of my RSG ground. However because it has such a low tinting index and its hue varies greatly from supplier to supplier, it’s not a good choice. An aqueous dispersion of high tinting dry pigments might be necessary here too.
- Whatever medium I choose, along with whatever tinting mechanism, its hue should be reproducible.
I began creating a number of test panels using different carriers and differing tinting solutions. After much experimentation I discovered:
- I experimented with adding a few blobs of tube acrylic “terre verte” to my acrylic gesso. It worked well enough for one panel but would clearly be difficult to calibrate chromatically across a large series. Also, I thought it would be a more expensive.
- By combining small but precisely measured amounts of cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, mars black and viridian I could grind up a hue that I liked. I added small amounts of distilled water until I had a paste which could be further diluted into a well-dispersed yet concentrated tinting solution.
- This hue could be reproducible across the series since I had not only maintained records of my dry pigment tints but also how much gesso base I had used (either various GOLDENS acrylic gessoes or various RSG recipes). In this way I knew how to ultimately manage my white component.
- Finally, the winner was an acrylic combination. See above, left. Though I truly prefer the haptic experience of a traditional RSG gesso for silverpoint, in this case acrylics won out. My reasons were: facility, it’s easy to use, for when you are planning on creating sixty four panels, this matters (RSG recipes can be more finicky); uniformity, the tinted, sanded surface of the acrylic ground was uniform (this was not always the case with my RSG gessoes); value, the silverpoint line was not too dark on the acrylic ground (surprisingly, the RSG/zinc white ground created a darkest line of all); line clarity/or not, a transparent coat of GOLDENS Pastel Ground applied onto the acrylic ground turned the surface texture into a rough sandpaper. In turn this made my silverpoint strokes a whispy sfumato, whereas the baby butt-smoothness of the burnished RSG grounds created fine, strong, clear lines (not what I was looking for in this project). Highlighting, washes of white gouache were well received on the acrylic ground and easily manipulated (because they were in an aqueous solution, this was not the case with the water-permeable RSG grounds). However, ultimately I opted for doing my highlights in (titanium white) acrylic since in the long run it requires less protection. Versatility, since I am beginning to imagine further (semi-translucent) coats of paint over the whole series after they are completed and fully assembled, the robust versatility of the acrylic medium seems to be the best choice.
It can sometimes seem like a lot of extra effort to do your homework like this, but it’s worse to create a whole project only to find that the materials you use don’t let you do whatever it is that you envision.
Besides, I think you have to enjoy creating mud-pies. 😉
Grouting and Glazing Anna
March 30, 2021
Anna Front after a few small repairs and cleaning.
Anna, Back, unretouched underpainting.
Sometime in mid January I picked up a painting that had languished in storage for almost ten years. It was headed for the dump for three main reasons.
One, both the front and back of the painting had become chipped and damaged – mostly due to poor storage conditions. I began to clean and repair it. The front side (see linked image to the left) had already been varnished so it responded well. The back side however, which had only received an underpainting of egg tempera had been less protected. It required more extensive cleaning but also since it was just an underpainting, subsequent layers of paint might just mask the worst offenders? I hoped for a resuscitation.
Two, because it was a two sided painting (consisting of twenty five individual panels), it lacked a cohesive structure. This made viewing both sides impossible. So I set to work glueing and framing Anna. Which I describe here. Surprisingly, through that glueing I was able to create something that was now a unified substrate, and then through framing, I now had an elegant way to display it in. My hopes rose yet again.
Anna Back, with her first level of grouting.
Three, because the original collection of panels had lacked that unified substrate, completing the back side (as I had envisioned it) was impossible. Now after glueing the small panels together I had what I needed. However, the grid pattern – which was clearly visible on the front side – and didn’t bother me at all there – was on the backside a technical hindrance. I didn’t want any paint/glaze seeping through the cracks. So I began to fill in the grid-gaps on the back side (with spackle). See image to the left. Then I touched up that spackle with egg tempera to match the existing underpainting. After sealing the ET with shellac, I reapplied some additional spackle and repeated my steps. Clearly, the patient was in intensive care.
Anna Back after two layers of a white lead scumble.
After everything had dried, I put on a coat of a diluted lead white ground. Its purpose was to ghost back and unify the image. The chalk gesso ground was very thirsty, especially in the grouted places, so I applied a coat of retouch varnish. Subsequently, I applied a second coat of white lead. Slowly my lady of the mirror became a luscious milky white maid, peering through her gridded dream. Now all that was left was the final blue glaze.
Anna Back. Oil on panels. 44.5 63.5 cm or 17.5 x 25 in.
When I felt the white ground/scumble was thoroughly dry and evenly receptive to further paint manipulations, I mixed up some ultramarine blue with glazing medium, took a deep breath and let loose. It took about 45 minutes to complete the painting. You can read about the final painting of the back via its linked image on the left.
The Connecticut Landscapes 1979-1980
February 28, 2021
I’ve been scanning some of my archived material from the late 1970s. Luckily my professors had always said: be sure to take slides of your work(!). Not all of them are well lit or even in pristine focus but hey, it’s better than nothing.
New Haven from Lighthouse Park II. 1980. Oil on panel. 5″ x 15″.
New Haven from Lighthouse Park I. 1980. Oil on panel. 5″ x 15″.
This series illustrates my initial attempts to paint landscape. They were done ‘en plein air’, in the sense that they were painted on site and not later in the studio. But even then, my approach was not impressionistic, which seeks to quickly render an evanescent moment. Rather, I would frequently return to the scene of the crime, building up layers (until the surface could hold no more), as I sought to describe something eternally universal about my chosen view.
I was living in New Haven Connecticut at the time, thus a number of them are harbour scenes from the city parks on the east and west side. In addition, there is an interstate 90 highway scene plus a seascape from a beach house in Old Saybrook, Connecticut where I lived one winter (the large red roof in the middle ground belonged to the family home of Katherine Hepburn, probably still does).
New Haven from Sandy Point. 1980. Oil on panel. 5″ x 15″.
Westbrook, Connecticut. 1979. Oil on Panel. 5″ x 15″.
Old Saybrook. 1978. Oil on panel. 5″ x 15″.
The provenance of the unusually long horizontal format is this. The father of a friend of mine used to prowl the local dump for useable building materials. One day he came home with a contraption consisting of seven 5″ x 15″ masonite panels which all hung from a bar. I detached them, stripped the panels of their paint but left the holes at the top intact – this is why you can still see the push pins I used to hold them to the wall.
At the time I created seven scenes. This is a record of five of them. I gave all of them away before I left the East Coast but I no longer know who has what. If some old friend ever pops up with an image of the other two I’ll happily update this page.
Both sides now
February 27, 2021
Interstate 90, Front. Somewhere around New Haven, Connecticut. 1980. Oil on panel. Approx: 12 x 16 in or 30 x 40 cm.
Interstate 90, Back. Somewhere around Old Saybrook, Connecticut. 1980. Oil on panel. Approx: 12 x 16 or 30 x 40 cm.
I’ve been attracted to creating paintings on both sides of a panel for a long time.
The idea to do so first occurred to me back in the late 70’s when I began painting on panels instead of the stretched canvas I had trained on. Illustrated here left and right is a highway scene from Connecticut, 1980. One view was straight on photo-realism (see above, left), while the back side was a playful attempt to break up an alternate yet related highway image by eliminating one section of a photograph, enlarging it and re-inserting (see right).
But this two-sided approach doesn’t occur to you if you paint exclusively on canvas. For, ever since the sixteenth century artists have steadily moved away from panels towards canvas. There are good reasons for this: canvas is lighter and more flexible than wood; it’s much easier to create (and store) large scale works; technically it’s less challenging; plus, the advent of acrylic paints and acrylic gesso in the 1950’s put the hammer in the coffin. So why bother? Well, I can only say that for me it’s always been a certain kind of (stiff-necked) tactile sensibility. I stick with what I can relate to, even as I have chalked up self-inflicted wounds.
View of the Predijkherrenrij, Front, Bruges, Belgium. 2010. Oil on panel 44 x 54 cm.
View of the Predijkherrenrij, Back, Bruges, Belgium. 2010. Oil on panel 44 x 59 cm. or 17 1/4 x 23 1/4 in.
Thus, soon after I returned to painting in 2003, I began to imagine the resurrection of the double sided painting approach, with an integrated view. At that time I created a view of the Predijkherrenrij in Bruges near to our apartment. I painted one side of a panel fully realistic and the back side fully abstract. However, in the preparation phase I had already created ask a carpenter to give it a rotating inner core. This would allow for four different viewing options. See the two linked views illustrated here, left and right.
Anna Front after a few small repairs and cleaning.
Anna Back. Oil on panels. 44.5 63.5 cm or 17.5 x 25 in.
When you paint on a wooden panel, you prime the back side as well. Initially you may do this for archival reasons since preparing both sides seals the panel from moisture. You’ll have less chance of it warping in the future. Then you also quickly realise that it’s equally viable as a painting surface(!). If you visit museums displaying works from a fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, you can see that it was often the case that both sides of the panel were painted then, too. Of course, foldable altar pieces were done that way. It was part of the original concept. You might occasionally find it in portraits, too. For example, an artist might have used the back side to experiment with trompe-l’œil effects. However, since it’s not an option intrinsic to a stretched canvas, as an approach, it’s all but lost.
Now I have recently completed a third front and back piece. The front side was completed in 2011. See linked image to the left. However, due to many technical reasons which I have documented here and here, the back side was not completed until March of 2021. See linked image on the right. No one in their right mind would conceive of the substrate for a painting – which itself is intended to express an essential unity – to consist of twenty five separate panels. Physically, it’s a contradiction in terms. Yet that is precisely what this project consisted of(!). Despite the fact that it has finally come to a successful fruition I don’t think I’ll try it again (ever). There must be easier ways to do this. 😉
Glueing and Framing Anna
February 16, 2021
Anna, Front, 2011. A multi media project. Newly framed: 50 x 70 cm or 19.6 x 27.5 in
About ten years ago I created a multi-media painting, consisting of twenty-five identically sized wood panels which, when assembled together, created one image. See linked image to the left.
The whole project was intended as a double-sided painting, so the panel backs were painted at the same time as well. How to display or hang something like that? Well, way back in the day when I had first conceived of such a project, I had a carpenter drill a hole through the length of each panel so that five panels could be assembled vertically on each of five dowels and the dowels could then be embedded into a frame, top and bottom. This would result in a five by five grid which, at least theoretically, would allow each panel to rotate front to back resulting in an ever changing painting. That, at least, was the theory.
In practice that turned out to be almost impossible. The columns created by the dowels swayed with the weight of the panels on them: they were too flexible. Also, creating a strong and stable frame for inserting the dowels at exact but slightly varying intervals (due to the different textures) along the horizontal supports top and bottom was way beyond my carpenter’s pay grade. Still I tried it out and though the result was very coarse, it worked well enough as a beta version. However, by implementing that structure, I discovered that the panels themselves could get damaged by rotating and more importantly, though it had seemed like a good idea, actually, it added little aesthetic value. So, ditch or punt? I was ready to take it all to the dump. I really was. There were so many reasons to bail.
But then I wondered: would be possible to glue it all together? Would it, could it ever be strong enough? And could I (finally) construct an elegant enough frame that would be able to hold it? I wanted to try even if only to complete the painting on the back side, which, in my vision, had always required the fully assembled group of panels in order to paint them with a unifying scumble (or two).
Anna, in her popsicle phase.
So, after repairing some chips on the fronts I began sanding the sides thinking that wood to wood contact should give the glue adhesive its best chance. I then constructed some U-shaped wooden casings for the sides, top and bottom. Eventually, these would be used to hold the painting in place within a larger, hardwood frame, but could also be used now as braces to insure alignment during the glueing process. I arranged the first five panels along one dowel and starting glueing top to bottom, cross-grain to cross-grain. That went quite well. I placed the wooden casing along both sides of the panels so that they could lay flat above and below one another as they dried. I ended up with five solid columns of five panels each. As they lay side by side the wooden dowels stuck out top and bottom making the columns look like a popsicle sticks. See the photograph above, right.
Anna, secured with straps during the final glueing phase.
I drilled holes in the shorter wooden casings to assist in holding the dowels (and therefore the panels) in place during the longitudinal gluing process. Then, after quickly glueing each column side to side and inserting the dowels into their bracings, I placed protective cloths and hardwood boards, above and below, and strapped buckles across the width to create the sideways pressure needed for a good adhesive contact. At this point the patient was completely mummified. See photo to the left. Above the mummy you can see the longitudinal casings sitting on a shelf. They are lined with white foam tape for protection of the painting in its casing. I gave the patient a good 24 hours to dry.
Anna, Back, the egg tempera underpainting in its new frame.
The next day the final result was one solid piece (!). Hooray! The painting could then be inserted into the wooden channels mentioned above. They in turn were attached to the inner sides of a simple hardwood frame. It screwed together along its length, top and bottom, allowing for easy access when and if need be.
The image at the top of this post shows the front side of the painting in its new frame while the image here to the right displays the back side (with its original underpainting from 2011). Now when all my egg tempera touch-ups to the back side have cured I intend to finally cover the back with those semi-transparent scumbles mentioned above. Here is the result.
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