Home › Forums › Explore Media › Casein, Gouache, and Egg Tempera › Historical panel painting ground

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  • May 24, 2018 at 1:23 pm #456485
    d3ntin
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        Good evening, I would love to get some suggestions about historical panel painting, especially on the gesso. I really need it since I have failed many attempts… I am trying to reconstruct a shield, which is (according to my sources) the same thing as making a panel painting. I have the linden base covered with a layer of parchment, as you can see in every surviving shield. I need to coat the parchment in gesso before painting, to be consistent with such originals and other treatises telling me to do this (Theophilus “De diversis artibus”, half XII Century, and “The craftman’s handbook” by Cennini mainly). I have been told that gesso making is difficult. Ho I tried getting some hide glue and calcium sulphate. I mixed 1 part glue to 10 parts water, melted it and added about 3 parts of gesso and some titanium white. The coating was fine, after 10 layers I got the board white. I tried to color with watercolors (1 part gum arabic to 3 water and pigment). I am not sure if it was for the watercolor or the 3-4 days of rain that come after (the shield was kept outdoors in my garage), but after 3 days the gesso had completely cracked… Keeping in mind that, although my first goal is historical accuracy, Id love also to have a shield which will be used effectively in combat, and have a good resistance under atmospherical events (maybe not leaving it under heavy rain, but I don’t want it to have problems like cracking with the humidity of some days of rain), what can I do about it? Is traditional gesso good enough? How can I make it in an effectively way? Keep in mind that I will prefer using egg tempera and watercolors, and gilding in some areas…I will also give a final varnish with sandarac (maybe in an linseed oil solution, but more probably with the modern alcoholic one). I can accept using maybe acrylic gesso…but I would really love to learn traditional gesso.. Thank for your answers!

        May 27, 2018 at 12:25 am #627545
        Delofasht
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            I believe it is calcium carbonate or gypsum you are looking for gesso, not calcium sulphate. Also, traditional gesso does not like large changes in moisture, as the glue used swells as humidity rises, when it dries back out after swelling cracking frequently occurs.

            A non reactive alternative glue might be a hand made Casein, for instructions on making a Casein glue see the link in this thread. Casein becomes impervious to water once fully cured, for home made Casein that is a few days, for a store bought emulsion a couple weeks. Because it is impervious to water though, watercolor does not perform amazingly on a surface primed with Casein by itself. Mixed with marble dust (calcium carbonate) though, you could make a very decent gesso from it. Casein is prone to cracking on flexible supports but otherwise is fine on anything attached to a rigid substrate (under a flexible surface).

            There are a number of other glues one could try in their gesso to come replace RSG as well, fish glue, gelatin, and a few others. Most all of those will be like any other hide glue though, swelling with humidity, though less so than rabbit skin glue. Casein seems to me a likely, if forgotten, glue that would have been easily made even in the medieval days. I usually buy a Casein emulsion medium instead which dries slower but is equally versatile, it has a slightly lemony aroma. One could do all the work from sizing, laminating, glue ups, gesso, and paint all with the Casein binder, should you decide to make it yourself. Good luck to ya.

            - Delo Delofasht
            June 10, 2018 at 12:58 am #627546
            Trond
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                So which sources say that shields were made from wood with parchment, and gesso? That does not sound right at all. I don’t have first hand knowledge of shield-making, but I do know a thing or two about historical materials. Parchment sounds much too fine. And I would definitely not use watercolor-like paints unless I had to. Are you sure they used gesso? (gesso is a bit brittle, and mostly used when you want a nice smooth surface). I have heard that shields were often decorated with oil colors long before oils were used in easel painting. This sounds plausible to me because oils are less likely to simply come off with some rain (it will take damage from moisture over longer periods of time, but shields were not made to last the way easel paintings were). Egg tempera might work better than watercolor, but it is a rather lengthy process, and results in a delicate paint layer, so I have my doubts about that too.

                In Norway (where I’m from), people have painted directly on wood with oil colors, for decorative purposes, for hundreds of years. So , if you ask me, I would think that oil colors applied directly to wood, or wood plus leather, would be the way to go. Alternatively, the ancient Greeks might actually have used encaustics (molten beeswax colors). Just my two cents.

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