Happy new year to all! I unfortunately was reminded recently that my personal champagne consumption is not, in fact, unlimited. It was nothing that a few Advil and hours in the spa couldn't cure though.

Santa duck below was still drinking a tasty beverage while I was recovering.













A few days ago I was excited to find a book about painting for sale by one of my favorite contemporary artists, Juliette Aristides. The Classical Painting Atelier goes through the logical curriculum of the way that painting was taught before modernism and 'concept' art (Sorry Mr. Pollock, but I will never see the incoherent scribbles as art). It's been out there for a while, but I had not seen it in the store.

I'm already through four chapters, and the painting exercises are great. Juliette's book has the forward written by Mr. Ross at the Art Renewal Center (listed over there as my favorite art group for some time now). Mrs. Aristides uses very little superflous writing, it's all to the point. And many of those points are made very quickly, I've found myself rereading some sections to make sure I don't miss anything.

I need to ask if any of her students at Gage Academy have some old practice paintings of casts they wouldn't mind selling.

Aunt Irene's Sugar Jar (Vaso Zucchero di Irine)

Ohhhh... Vel Hellloooo der...

Below is a small realism work that caught my eye at the Ft. Worth Art Fair last year, 'Aunt Irene's Sugar Jar' by Brad Watson, so I bought it unframed. The frame I put on it is a standard barrister type with copper gilding done by yours truly with a bit of burnt umber over it to get rid of that annoying 'new penny' look and mix better with the colors presented in the painting.

A comment a few days ago from yet another funny Brit, The Jules, reminded me of gilding and some of the work I have done in that craft. Let's face it, most people can't afford to manufacture things out of solid gold, and even if they could, for things like crown molding, picture frames, or largish SUVs like Hummers, it would really be too heavy. So the idea is to cover the object with a thin layer of gold so you have the illusion of being gaudier than Donald Trump in a full length fur coat on jewelry bling day.

In ancient times they used some methods of gilding that, well, let's just say they were not particularly environmentally friendly. One such method was called fire gilding. It involved mixing gold with mercury.
Now not many people know that gold dissolves into mercury, which can be used to greatly amuse people you meet at cocktail parties. 'Who wants to see a magic trick? May I borrow your Rolex for a moment, Miss?'

Anyway, the gold-mercury mixture was brushed onto the object that needed to look like gold and then was exposed to a hot fire which vaporized the mercury, leaving the gold behind in a perfect shell. The color of this perfect shell was a little dull, so they apparently used agates to rub it down to get it back to a more brilliant yellow color.

Back then as today, inhaling mercury vapors is NOT a good thing. Some historians say that 60 workmen were killed by fumes from the fire gilding of the dome of St. Isaac's Cathederal in St. Petersburg, Russia. So whenever I burn mercury in alchemy experiments, I use a diving snorkel with fins and stand way back (kidding, DON'T do this).

Here is a mercury fountain in Spain that would probably help out with all of this.

The method I used for the picture frame border was glue gilding in which adhesive is brushed on, then gold leaf follows (or in the frame example above, copper leaf). In my experience, a fan brush worked best with this technique. Then you let it dry, and don't be afraid to put on multiple layers to make it really thick.

Maybe a really good trick to thwart burglars would be to gild all of your gold bullion bars with Velveeta, unless they were hungry for some queso and corn chips because that must be lots of work moving all those heavy expensive items out of houses. In any case, I suppose it would take them a while to scrape all the gilding off the media room moldings.

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Per favore, non utilizzano mercurio per doratura!!!

Limey (Stucco Calce)

In sketching and laying out subjects to paint last night, I imagined a new painting project I have in mind would look best in fresco. And you can't have fresco, or a cuba libre for that matter, without lime. But the lime I'm talking about isn't this of course.








It's this, the same stuff I use as a temporary base for laying out the more complicated marble mosaics, lime plaster putty to be specific. It's different than the stuff that goes on the walls in more modern US construction (gypsum sheetrock).














Two years ago, I made several five gallon buckets of this by burning hydrated lime that you can buy in the local hardware store in large stainless pots (which made some of it revert to CaO which is necessary to get the putty just right). Then I mixed the super dried powder with distilled water and saw more bubbles than a Michael Jackson birthday party.

Be very cautious though if making lime at home. I wore some goggles because when you first pour the water into the lime to make putty, it is reactive in a way that would make a mad chemist's heart warm. And, the resulting splash of lime in the eye would definitely ruin your entire day (and maybe eyesight).

In ancient times, they had very large holes dug in the ground (pits, I think they call them), in which they would toss crushed limestone and burn it with large peat fires. Then they poured water into the pit to hydrate or 'slake' the lime to make it ready to use on walls, pinatas, or a weird army of decorative lawn jockeys.














Two thousand year old frescos still intact and with vivid color locked in is testament to how durable lime is after it dries completely. It basically loses moisture and reverts back to limestone. So after drying, it's now limestone shaped how you want it and with the images you have painted. I imagine if you put your mind to it and with enough effort, you could even make limestone rocks.

If you have the lime and want to do a fresco of your own, you need inert ingredients like marble dust, sand, or perfect diamonds to keep the lime from cracking as it dries and to add strength. Lay down a base coat 10mm thick on a frame (or on a prepared wall) at about 2:1 sand to lime.
After the base coat dries, wet it down and put an 'intonaco' skim coat on that 3mm thick with a 1:1 sand to lime ratio. When mixing the sand and lime, resist the temptation to add more lime even though it looks very sandy and doesn't mix well at first, eventually it will become plastic-ish and spreadable.

Here is one I did earlier this year, the next one will be a bit more involved.


On a completely unrelated matter, does anyone see a typo in the latin below that I want to carve into some marble? I'm not sure if liquid paper or backspace will work to correct any errors in the stone, so I want to be pretty sure it is right.



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P.S. - a super prize for anyone that can interpret all parts of the inscription above.