060v - - - - - Varnish dry in an hour
Take white turpentine oil & turpentine & mastic, pulverized & passed subtly through a sieve, & boil them together, stirring continuously with a stick just until it is dry. And put in two liards of good eau de vie. And if you extract the tear of mastic, it will be whiter & clearer. There is no need to put in turpentine, but only its white turpentine oil & mastic pulverized at your discretion, until it has enough body. +
at left top margin
+ which you will know when it is placed on a knife in the wind and does not flow. This one is excellent for panels and is dry within an hour and does not stick like turpentine.
Cleaning panels
Some clean them with soapy water, others with urine, others with white wine, for dust spoils the colors.
at left middle margin
** Spike lavender oil **
One ought not to not put any into colors for it is so brisk and penetrating that it makes the colors flake, which next come off. And for this reason, painters use it to clean their oil pinceaulx when they have become hard, for it renders them soft & clean immediately, penetrating the dry color which encrusts them. Also, painters, sometimes envious of the work undertaken by another, in the evening secretly pour a few drops of spike lavender on the oil on the top edge of the panel such that, running down, it makes a stain that penetrates as far as the wood & destroys the colors such that, to make the work even & of an equal composition, they are forced to do everything again and thus lose their work.
Wood color
One gives a layer of bistre, then a coat of varnish.
Work of the Flemish
They do all their works in oil with the tip of the pinceau, in f the manner of good illuminators, and grind their colors very finely, protect against dust, and often clean from their pinceau the bits of hair which they sometimes leave there, for if these should remain on the work it this, it would prevent neat working, which they are very careful about. In this way their work appears very soft, especially in small work, in which one needs to apply more diligence because one looks at them more closely. They usually finish the forehead, then the eyes, next the nose, finally the mouth and the rest. But they do not proceed like some others who fo layer two or three different flesh tones, one yellowish & the other darker, because the colors always mix & finally die. They simply make their underlayer properly.
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