056v - - - - - Painter
The lake & floree rosette of Ghent & others lose their color & die in the air.
All marble on which a knife can prick is worth nothing for grinding fine colors.
Chalk has no body in oil. Ceruse is appropriate. But lead white more excellent. Ceruse is the whitest, when ground first in water, the lead white grayish. But the white it takes on its perfect whiteness in oil.
When you grind your colors, first clean your workshop well, for when walking, if you stir up dust, this will damage your colors, which will never be beautiful if they are not very be clean.
Florey must not be mixed with azur d’esmail or another, for it makes it green.
For palettes to paint, ivory is excellent, knots of the fir tree, the pear tree &, if it is a walnut tree, make sure the grain of the wood runs lengthwise.
L One always needs to prime d on wood to paint there in oil in order to fill the holes & unevenness, and prime with some stil de grain yellow & ceruse mixed in oil, then soften with a feather, which flattens better than a pinceau. Or when the primer is dry, scrape strongly with a knife.
To use azur d’esmail in oil, one needs to choose the most delicate. And to make it subtle, one ought not grind it, for this makes it whiten. But one needs to wash it, & the roughest going to the bottom, choose the one that is at the top of the water or, by inclination, pour out the cloudy water, then gather the azur.
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@The one who makes his profession working in oil will hardly work well in distemper if he has not been trained well from adolescence. For the way of working is different, because when washing the pinceau for distemper, one always leaves it moist. And on the contrary, when one cleans the pinceau in oil to soften, one wipes the pinceau well. Otherwise, the work would run & would soon be disfigured.
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The Italians soften by hatching with a large flat pinceau which makes serrations.
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And they do not lay their shadow all at once like the Flemish, but make them hatching lightest toward the light then a little darker next & and finally a little blacker to better make recede & come up.
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In distemper do not mix your different colors together But for this makes them die, but use each separately. And in order that they do not dry & that you have time to soften, moisten the back of the canvas.
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