Secrets Concerning Colors and Painting

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§ IX.  Preparation of Lapis Lazuli to Make Ultramarine.

CXXI.  1st.  The general manipulation of the whole process; each single part of which shall be treated of in particular afterwards.
    1.  Take one pound, or whatever quantity you please, of lapis lazuli.  Let your stones be well chosen, and of that sort which are streaky with gold.  Try their quality whether good or bad, which is done thus.  Break one bit of it, set it on red hot coals, and blow as hard as you can for an hour, then take it off and let it cool.  If in touching it, it drop like mould or dust, it is a sign it is not worth any thing; but if it remains hard, and preserves its colour, it is good.  When you have thus made yourself sure of the quality of the stone, break it all in small knobs, put them in a crucible on a melting fire, which by strength of bellows you push on for an hour and a quarter.  Then throw them into the strongest double distilled wine vinegar.  When they are this extinguished, take them out to dry, and prepare the following water.
    2.  Boil a little raw white honey, with two pints of water, in a glazed pipkin.  Skim it so long as there comes an scum on it; then take it off to cool; and, when cold, dissolve in it the bigness of a nut of the best dragon's blood, reduced into a subtile powder.  Rum this dissolution through a white cloth into a glazed earthen pot.  Observe to make your water (with that dragon's blood) neither too red, nor too clear, but to keep a just medium between both, that the azure may take a finer hue.  With this liquor grind, for the space of an hour and a half, the above mentioned lapis lazuli, then gather it into a large glazed vessel, let it dry in the shade, but guard off the sun, otherwise it will undoubtedly lose its color.  When it is perfectly dry, grind it a-new into a very fine powder, then pack and keep it tied very closely in fine white linen.   The proceed to the following paste.
    3.  Take two ounces of the best white rosin, an equal quantity of Greek pitch, and the same quantity again of mastich, linseed oil, turpentine, and virgin wax.  Powder what is powderable, and cut small what is not.  Put all into a new glazed pipkin, and boil it to perfection; which you know by letting a drop fall into cold water, and taking it out with your fingers.  For if it do not stick to your fingers, it is done to perfection.  When it is done to perfection, run it quite hot through a sheer cloth into a pan of cold water, wherein leave it till perfectly hard; then take it out and let it dry.  When you want to incorporate it with the powder, proceed as follows.
    4.  Cut this paste into small bits, and put it to melt over the fire in a well tinned saucepan.  When the contents come to make a noise, throw in two ounces of oil of bitter almonds, and lit it boil for about then minutes.  In the mean while have your lapis lazuli powder ready in a vessel, then pour over it gently, and little at a time, what is boiling in the pipkin, observing to stir carefully while you pour, in order to incorporate well this liquid with the powder, which being done let the whole cool.  Then, having rubbed your hands with oil of olive, take this composition and work it well in order to incorporate well this liquid with the powder, which being done let the whole cool.  Then, having rubbed your hands with oil of olive, take this composition and work it well in order to incorporate all perfectly; and, after having given it the form of a loaf, put it in a glazed vessel to keep it for use.
    5.  When you want to draw the azure from it (which must not be less than twelve days after this last operation) begin first by making a strong lye with vine wood ashes, which you strain through a flannel bag, to get it very clear.  Then putting it in a copper boiler, on the fire, till it is so hot as not to be able to keep the hand in without scalding, you pour some of it on what quantity of the above paste you please, to extract the azure from, and stir it gently till it begins to come out.  When, by this stirring your paste in this lye, this last is become well charged with the color, decant it out with another glazed vessel, of which sorts of vessels you must have a good provision ready.  Then pour again some more warm lye seems sufficiently charged with tint, and decant it out again into another well glazed vessel.  Pour new warm lye again on your paste, and proceed as before, continuing so to do till the paste gives no more tint to the lye.
    6.  Observe, that when the lapis is good, you lose but four ounces of it out of one pound, and that you extract twelve ounces of azure in the following proportion.  Five ounces of very fine ultramarine, by the first washes; four middling, out of the second, and three base ones, by the last.  Each of the different qualities must be kept separately, and washed in several clear lyes, by changing them from vessel to vessel several times, with new lye each time.  And when they seem to you very bright, put them a-drying in a shade, but not  in the sun, in a room perfectly free from dust.
    7.  When it is dried, take a glass of brandy, in which you have put a soaking a little Brasil wood, and asperge the ultramarine with that tinged brandy, stir it, and let it dry; renew the aspersion for two or three days, till the azure participates a little of this tint.  When it is well dried, for the last time, you will find it to be of a most beautiful hue.  then put it in small leather bags, and keep them well tied.

CXXII.  2nd. Directions to be observed in the process of preparing the strong cement in which the lapis lazuli is to be incorporated, to draw afterwards the azure from it.
    1. Take first, clear and neat Venetian turpentine, four ounces; fine white rosin, six; fine Greek pitch, as much; clear and pure mastich, three; fine shining white wax, and equal quantity; purified linseed oil, one and a half.  Then have a well glazed pipkin, quite new; put in it first the turpentine, and set it on a small and mild charcoal fire.  Stir it with a wooden spatula, like that of apothecaries, till it is well liquefied; introduce, next, the rosin to it, by little and little at a time, and incorporate it well; when this is done, add the Greek pitch to it, in the same manner, then the mastich in powder, at three or four times; then the wax cut very small, also by degrees, and stir well till the whole is perfectly incorporated together.  Above all, take care to do this with a slow fire, otherwise these matters will undoubtedly burn, as they are of an inflammable nature.  At last, put the linseed oil, and set the pot on the fire, and let the composition simmer till the cement is quite done, which you know by the following experiment.
    2.  Turn the spatula all round the pot in the composition, then raising it out, let a drop or two fall into a pan of cold water.  If the drop spread on the water, the composition is not done, therefore you must let it simmer longer on the fire.  If on the second trial the drop keep in one lump, the matter is done.
    3.  When the cement has acquired a tolerable degree of coldness in the water, take it out in a lump; and, with your hands imbibed with linseed oil, prepared and purified, as hereafter directed, for fear it should stick to them, work it so well, that there shall remain no more water about it.  When this is performed, the cement is perfectly completed; and, to preserve it, keep it perpetually in cold water.  Therefore, in summer, you must change that water every day, and with such precautions, you may preserve it eight or ten years always good for strong cement.

CXXIII.  Another cement, of a softer nature.
    1.  Take fine Venice turpentine, four ounces; fine white rosin, six; Greek pitch, as much; fine wax, one; and linseed oil, three parts of an ounce.  Prepare this cement after the same way as the other; and observe carefully in the doing of it the same order.
    2.  Observe, that this sort of cement is sooner done than the first, and that it will sooner return you the azure then the first, which is harder, will do.  But neglect not, if you intent to work the lapis lazuli with both these cements, you must begin with the soft first.  And you you are not to be kept ignorant, that if your lapis lazuli be not of the best sort (which is the gold streaked sort) you must guard well from giving it the two cements.  In the art of preparing and giving the cement or cements, consists entirely that of making the ultramarine azure; in that point lies all your gain or your loss.  Therefore, take great care to do it well.

CXXIV.  Directions to prepare and purify the linseed oil for the azure.
    1.  Take whatever quantity you will of fine linseed oil, of a fine saffron or gold colour.  Put it in a glass, or bullock's horn, perforated at the small end.  Pour over this oil some cold water, and stir it well with a stick, to mix it well, then let it settle.  When the oil and the water are divided, open the little hole which is at the bottom of the horn, and let the water out.  Put some fresh water, and repeating the same process seven or eight times, till the water runs off as clear as you first put it in.
    2.  Thus your oil shall be perfectly purified; and in that state you may keep it in a well stopped glass bottle for use.
    3.  The oil of bitter almonds may absolutely supply the want of this; but besides its being dearer, it is not near so good for the purpose.
    Note.  That whenever we shall speak of oil, we always mean linseed oil this prepared and purified.

CXXV.  The lye to wash the ultramarine with.
    1.  Take eight or ten handfuls of pearl-ashes, made with vine-wood ashes.  Put this into a box perforated at the bottom, and large enough to hold a couple of pails of water.  Place this basket, and set it so that the water cannot run out of it without carrying the ashes along with it.  Stop the hole on the outside, before putting the ashes into it, and press these down very hard, then pour, by degrees, a pail of warm water over these ashes.  when these are settled again, unstop the hole, and put a bung, made of an old list of white cloth, through which you will make it run drop by drop into a pan.  Repeat this distillation again, by putting this same lye into another perforated box, without any ashes, and stop it with another bung of the same kind as the first, so that you may get your lye fine and clear; and put it to keep in a well glazed vessel, carefully covered, for fear of the dust.
    2.  Now pour another similar quantity of warm water on the same ashes as before; proceed exactly with this second water as with the first, and keep these two sorts of water for use.
    3.  Repeat again the same operation, by pouring a third pail of water on the same ashes, and proceeding in every respect as with the two former, you will be possessed of three sorts of lye, of three different degrees of strength.
    4.  These various sorts of lyes serve to wash the cement of paste, in order to draw the azure out, after the method hereafter prescribed.  When you want to proceed to work, take of the three different sort of lye, and mix them so as to give them the due degree of strength, according as you think requisite.

CXXVI.  Another sort of lye for the same purpose.
    There is another sort of lye which can be made to cleanse the cement of its unctuosity and grease, and which they prepare in the following manner.
    1.  Take whatever quantity of calcined tartar you like.-- Boil it for a quarter of an hour in a clear water.  Then let it settle, and decant it into a glass bottle, stop it well, and keep it for use.
    2.  It is fit for taking the grease off the cement when too unctuous.  Likewise to wash all the ultramarine with, and thereby heighten its colour.
    3.  This lye has also another particular quality, which is that of curing the mange, the itch, and other cutaneous disorder, by washing with it.  It purifies and whitens the skin prodigiously.

CXXVII.  Directions for the choice of the vessels in which the most impure ultramarine is to be washed, in order to be mixed afterwards with the other azure.
    1.  The vessel, if it be an earthen vessel, should be well hardened in the baking, and finely glazed in the inside, or it of brass or copper, should be of a perfect polish all round, and at the bottom, in the inside.
    2.  It must be perforated by the side with three holes, to admit of three cocks, one toward the middle part, the other lower, and the third at two fingers breadth from the bottom.
    3.  Though the azure matter which is at the bottom of the vessel appear not to you to be such, let it rest eight or ten days and you will be convinced of the contrary.  when you plainly perceive somewhat of azure at the bottom of the water, decant it out as gently as possible; take out that azure, wash it with clean water; and you will find it as good as the rest.

CXXVII.  Observations for discerning the good or bad qualities of the lapis lazuli, from which you intend to compose ultramarine.
    1st Trial.  Wet first the lapis lazuli, with common water, and wrap it up in a piece of fine white cloth or serge.  It will thereby become of a fine lustre, and purple colour, very agreeable to the sight.
    2nd Trial.  If you want to know whether or not it be fine, set it on blasting charcoals, and blow them continually for a good while.  Then take it off from the fire.  I, being cold, it has not lost much of its colour, it is fine; but if it has lost none of its colour, none can be finer.  For the lapis which is a superior degree of fineness, acquires, instead of losing colour, when put to this trial.
    3rd Trial.  For the third experiment, put the lapis a reddening on an iron plate over the fire; then extinguish it in the best double distilled white cine vinegar.  If by this trial it acquire more colour, it is too fine; if it only keep its own without any alteration, it is good and such as you can wish to have it.  The lapis, which on tat trial acquires more colour, may be worth between thirty and forty shillings an ounce.  But that which keeps its own natural colour after trials, is really scarce.  As to that which loses the colour, you can make but very middling and common ultramarine with it.
    4th Trial.  When you buy it ready reduced into powder in order to know whether or not it be pure, and without any mixture.  It is this; put some of this powder into a goldsmith's crucible; set it on a strong fire to make it red hot, then take off the crucible.  If it be enamel, you will find it melted, but if it be true pulverized lapis, it will remain a powder.  If there be only a mixture of enamel with the pulverized lapis that enamel, in melting, will gather up all the lapis powder, and when cold, you will find it in  a little cake at the bottom of the crucible.  This deception is very common among colour makers.
    Remarks.  The three different azures, which, by means of the cements abovementioned, you will get from the lapis, will amount altogether to fifteen ounces for each pound of lapis, that is to say ten ounces of superfine ultramarine, which will sell for twelve or thirteen ducats an ounce; three ounces of medium which will sell for between three or four half crowns, and tow ounces of the common base sort, which will sell for one half crown.  This last is little regarded, and is called ashy; but it will pay you for the expense of the cement, therefore you will easily be able to judge of the clear profit you can make out of it.   If you employ that sort of lapis which loses all its colour with the trial of the fire and vinegar, you will neither get so fine ultramarine from it, nor so much in quantity, as you can from the other.  And if, as will be mentioned hereafter, you attempt to refine it, it will lose a great deal of its weight.

CXXIX.  The method of calcining and preparing the lapis lazuli, in order to grind it afterwards.
    1.  Take that sort of lapis lazuli which is streaked with gold veins, and which has undergone the abovementioned trials.  Break it in small bits, no larger than a filbert.  Wash them in warm water, then set them on the fire in a crucible till red hot.  When thus reddened take them out one by one. and extinguish them in double distilled white wine vinegar, which shall have been previously run through a hat three or four times.  When thus extinguished, take them all out from the vinegar, and calcine them a-new, then extinguish them as before.  Repeat this operation six or seven times, that they may more easily submit to the pestle in the mortar, and not stick to it.
    2.  As for the lapis, which loses its colour by the fire, you mist dispense with the calcining of it, for as it would lose it more and more, you would at last lose both your trouble and your money.
    3.  Therefore, put either that which is calcined, or that which is not, in a bronze mortar covered over, and pound it well.  Fift it through the silk sieve, covered also with its lid, the the most subtile part of the powder should not evaporate, as it is the best.

CXXX.  Directions for making the liquor fit to grind the lapis with, in order to make the ultramarine.
    1.  Take three half pints of rain water, after having run through a hat three or four times.  Put into a new pipkin, and dilute as much raw honey in it as will render the water, yellow; boil it till it ceases to give any scum, which take care to throw away as fast as it rises.  When it is quite clear and fine, take it off the fire, bottle it for the following use.
    2.  Have fine dragon's blood, grind it on a porphyry stone with the above prepared honey-water; put this when well grinded, into another bottle.  Over it pour so much honey water, till it acquires a purple colour.  Decant it, when settled, from the ground, and keep it by itself.  Such is the sort of water which is to be used to grind the lapis lazuli with.
    3.  Observation.  Should the lapis lazuli from which you intent to draw your ultramarine, show some purple colour of a remarkable hue and beauty, you must encourage it by means of the abovementioned honey-water, and it that of the stone is too pale, then render that of the liquor deeper.  By these means you may make these three sorts of colors of what degree you like, by giving more or less of the liquor, and coloring this at your will according as you see either of these proceedings requisite for your purpose.
    Note.  Choose dragon's blood in tears, such as the goldsmiths use, not that which is in powder.

CXXXI.  The method of grinding the lapis lazuli on porphyry, and the signs which attend it.
    1.  When the lapis is well pounded into powder, and that powder has been sifted as before directed, set it on porphyry stone, and grind with the mullar, bathing it as you grind it, with the honey water, by little and little at a time.   Keep your powder on the stone, in as small a compass as you can.
    To grind this, one pound of pulverized lapis, you must divide it into three parcels, grind one of each, and no more at a time, and it must take two hours grinding at least, to make money of it.  Take care to keep your stone wet with the above prepared honey water all about your paste, that this should no stick to the stone while you grind it.  This wetting must take in all one tumbler full of the liquor for the whole pound of lapis powder.  When you have grinded one part of that pound, take it out, and grind the second on the same spot on the stone, the next, and so on, as long as you have any to grind; be sure in grinding it, you use no other water than honey-water.
    2.  To know whether of not it be sufficiently grinded, take a little on the tip of you finger, and mash it between your fore teeth.  If you do not feel it crack, as the dry powder does, then it is sufficiently grinded.  Do not grind it too much, lest it should lose its colour, which happens sometimes.
    3.  To dry the lapis after it is grinded, put it on a clean stone, and set it to dry in the shade, not the sun, for it would spoil it.  When it looks as if it were fry, touch it with the finger, and if it rubs into powder as mould or dirt would do, you may leave it longer.  But if it resist the finger, and do not break, it is time to take it off.
    4.  Then comes the washing of that ultramarine azure, which is performed as follows.  Take a china bowl, without any crack or riveting whatever, and of the most perfect polish of glaze in the inside, put therein your dried lump of paste.  Over it pour the soft lye above described, and let it surpass the pump in the bowl by four finger breadth.  Then wash it well between your hands, and dilute all entirely into that lye.  When this is done, let it settle, and when the azure is entirely precipitated at the bottom, and the lye swims quite clear over it, decant it out gently, by inclination, and set the azure a drying in the shade, without moving it from the bowl.  When you find it pretty dry, take it out carefully, spread it on the porphyry stone to finish drying.  And when it is thoroughly dry, in that manner, give it the cement as follows.

CXXXII.  The method of incorporating the ground lapis lazuli, with either of the strong or soft cements.
    1.  For one pound of the lapis lazuli, prepared as directed in the preceding article, take one of the strong cements described.  Rub this over with your hands as you take it out of the water, in which preserve it; then cut in small bits, and put it a melting over warm ashes, in a glazed new pipkin.  Take care that, in melting, it should not fry.  When this happens, put a little linseed oil, it will immediately cease to fry.
    2.  When the cement is well dissolved, take that same spatula which before served you to make it with, rub it over with a little of the same oil, and stir well the melted cement with it.  Ten with the other hand, taking a pound of prepared lapis lazuli, let it run slowly into your cement, till the whole pound is put into the cement, which you must not cease to stir and mix with the spatula, as long as you pour in the lapis.  Continue to stir after that, till you are well convinced that the lapis and the cement are well mixed and amalgamated together.
    3.  When this is done, take the pot and pour the contents, quite boiling, into a vessel full of cold water, and with the spatula take out all that is about the sides of it, and clean it well.  Then when the said cement shall be cold enough to admit touching it with your hands, rub them all over with purified linseed oil, and take it out of the water.  If in pulling it, you see it is well tinged and colored, it is a good omen.  Work it well then between your hands, and with your fingers, for near two hours, pulling it the same time to the length and breadth, to see whether there are not some bubbles inclosing little parcels of powder not well divided and incorporated, and that you may spread them in the cement in working.  The more the pasted is this wrought, the better it will be afterwards, as it will require less washing to get the azure out of it.
    4.  When it is thus wrought, form it into a lump like a loaf of bread, and put it into a china bowl, with fresh cold water, where let it soak for ten or fifteen days longer, because the longer it soaks, the finer and more perfect it becomes, and the more easy to get the azure out.  But if it be not soaked at least twelve days, it will not do at all.

CXXXIII.  Directions for extracting the azure out of the cement.
    1.  Take the lump of cement just mentioned out of the cold water in which you left it to soak.  Rub it softly over with your hands, and place it in a finely glazed china bowl, previously wet with the aforesaid linseed oil.
    2.  Pour over it lukewarm common water, filtered through a hat before warming.  Observe that this water, when poured on the cement, be rather cool than warm, and let there be about two fingers breadth in the bowl above the cement.  Then let it soak about one quarter of an hour.
    3.  Have two sticks made of box, or other fine hard wood, susceptible of a fine polish.  These sticks must be made round, by a turner, of a foot long of thereabouts, a little thicker than one's thumb, being larger at one of the ends, and flattened in form of an almond.
    4.  With these sticks, move and turn gently at first, your cement in lukewarm water.  And if in so doing it should stick to the bottom of the bowl, rub your hands with oil, and detach it carefully, turning and returning it gently with your hands in the water, till at last it begins to be tinged with azure.-- The first signs by which you know that the cement begins to render the ultramarine, are certain lines and streaks which appear in the water, not unlike the rays of the sun.  And when this is the case, take notice, that the water soon assumes a high hue of that colour, particularly at the first discharge of the cement, as it is always the best azure which comes first.
    5.  As soon therefore as you see your water sufficiently tinged, pour it through a sieve into the vessel with three cocks, described before, supporting the cement on two sticks, for fear it should stick to the bottom of the bowl, when thus left dry on it.  The reason you are advised to run this water through a sieve, is to prevent any bits of cement which have broken from the lump, and be loose in the water, from running with it, so that you might stop an rejoin it to the other.
    6.  When you have got this first water out of the cement, pour some more water, of the same degree of warmth, rather under lukewarm than above, and proceed as before with sticks, moving and turning the cement, and so working it as to get new azure from it, which decant into a vessel separately from the first water.
    7.  Repeat again the same process, to draw the third azure, and decant again this into a vessel by itself.
    Observe not to hurry, particularly at first, the softening of the cement in the water, by working to hastily, if you force the azure too precipitately out of the cement, you will manifestly spoil all.

CXXXIV.  Observations on the colors of the azures, at their coming out of the cement, and the signs which attend them.
    1.  The most manifest sign of the first azure coming out, is an apparent coarseness; a character which is owing to the veins of gold which appeared in the original stone, and which give the first ultramarine that sort of look.
    2.  The second azure will seem much finer, but its colour will not be so high nor so fine.
    3.  The third will increase again in appearance of the fineness, but diminish still more in hue, which will be of a much paler blue than any of the two others.  These observations are always on the supposition that the original stone was a good one, and had gone fairly through all the trials.

CXXXVI.  The washing and purifying of the azures after thy are got out of the cement.
    When the different azures are all got out of the cement, let them settle and fall down, each at the bottom of their vessels.  When their waters appear quite clear and free form them on the top, pour them out gently and carefully by inclination; then supply them with soft lye, and wash those azures in it with your hands, and each of them distinctly in separate vessels by themselves.  Then let them settle to the bottom, and decant out that lye, and repeat again and again the same process, till you are sure they are all well purged from the grease of the cement in which they were.  Rinse them afterwards in three of four different clear waters, filtered through a hat, and they will be perfectly purified and clean.

CXXXVI.  Another way of purifying the same azures with yolks of eggs.
    1.  Take half a dozen of yolks of eggs, from hens fed upon corn, and not suffered to run among the grass.  Pierce the pellicula which covers those yolks with the point of a needle, and pour equally those yolks on the azure powder, as you would do oil on a salad.
    2.  Do the same on all you different azures, put separately in different dishes.  Then incorporate well the azure and the yolks of eggs together with your hands.  When done, wash it afterwards with the softest lye, so many times that it shall a last come out as clear as you first put it in; then rinse it three or four times in clear water, which has been filtered several times through a hat.
    This method of washing the azures is an excellent one.  It may be deemed a true secret to give them a fine lustre and brilliancy.  Never forget to let each of your waters be well settled before you change them, otherwise you will lose a great deal of the azures.

CXXXVII.  Another secret for purifying azures.
    To give the most admirable lustre to azures. Take a bullock's gall, and pour it on you separate azures, after they have been washed and purified in waters, lyes, and yolks of eggs.  Then rub and handle well those azures with your hands, each by themselves, and one after another distinctly, for fear of mixing some of the one with any of the others.  Then wash them, as above directed.

CXXXVIII.  How to run the azures, after having been this cleansed, washed and purified.
    1.  The ultramarine azure, as well as all the others, ought to be run, for fear there should remain some grease, dirt, or bit of cement among them.  Therefore, when they come to the last water, run them through a fine sieve, then through another more open, and through another again more so still.  Each time let the water settle, till you have them quite clear, or take them out by means of a sponge, as before directed, but do it with such care as not to have you azure get into the sponge with the water, which would be very detrimental to your interest.
    2.  When you have well cleared all the waters away, let those azures all dry in their own dishes or bowls, and in the shade, not in the sun, and guard well against dust and dirt in working them.
    3.  When the azures are perfectly dry, gather them each separately, and put them in small white bags, made of animals skins, with the smoothest side inwards.  When the little bag is tied, rub it all manner of ways, to refine the azure in it; and the more you shall have do so, the finer colour the azure will acquire when you open it, and it comes to the air again.

CXXXIX.  The method of making the green azure.
    1.  With the Armenian stone, if we are to believe Alexander Trollian, who says, that is is enough to reduce that stone into powder on the marble or porphyry, then wash it several times in clean water, and dry it afterwards.-- But it must certainly be far preferable to separate the colour from the constituent matter of the stone, and all its earthly particles, which must undoubtedly render it much finer and fitter for painting, as it is more purified of its heterogeneous parts.  Therefore, the following process is most advisable.
    2.  Reduce the stone into a subtile powder, then put it into brandy of distilled vinegar.  Put this to digest on the hot ashes bath, or balneo mariae, till the liquor is perfectly charged with the colour of the stone.  Decant it then gently into another vessel, and pour some more brandy or vinegar on its ground, if you have reason to think that there remains some colour still in the stone, throw away all the ground, as perfectly useless, and then evaporate, on warm ashes, the vinegar or brandy impregnated with the colour; or rather distil it, as by that means you will get your liquor pure again, and may use it another time for the same purpose, instead of washing it away.
    3.  By this process, which seems most rational, you will get the green colour quite pure at the bottom of the vessel.  Wash and clean it quite pure with water, and after dying, keep it for use.   This is a very fine colour in painting, and has this advantage, that it never loses its brightness.

CXL.  A very fine method for marbling paper.
    The paper must first be prepared, by wetting the paper with a sponge dipped in roch-alum water, then letting it dry.-- When the sheets have been thus prepared, have a pan full of water, and with a large and long-handled painting-brush, take of one colour, and shake it in the water; take of another and do the same, and so on till you nave taken of all the colors you intend to have on your paper.  Each of these colors fall to the bottom of the water; but take with a similar brush as the first, a mixture of bullock's gall, and of dissolution of soap in water, then shake on the water, and all over the surface, and you will soon see all the colors rising up again and swimming on the top of the water each separately as you first put them.  Then lay the sheet of paper on it, give it a turn on one side or the other, as you like, and take it up again; wash and set it to dry, then burnish it, and it is done.

CXLI.  Another Method.
    There are several kinds of marbled paper, which vary only in the form or figure of colouring; some are dotted, others drawn in irregular lines; but the method of tinging them, simply consists in dipping the paper in a thick solution of gum tragacanth, over which the colours are uniformly spread, after having been ground with ox-gall and spirit of wine.
    Process.  First immerse the paper in clean water; the sheets being regularly folded over each other, and covered with a weight.  It is now to be carefully laid on the colouring solution, and pressed softly down with the hand that it may bear equally on the whole, next the paper must be suspended in order to dry; and as soon as the moisture is evaporated, the paper is polished by rubbing it with a little soap, and smoothing it with glass highly burnished, or with a polished agate.
    The colors usually employed are, for red, carmine, lake, or vermilion; for yellow, Dutch-pink and yellow ochre; for blue, Purssian blue, and verditure; for green, verdigrease, a mixture of orange, the orange lake, or a composition of vermilion or red-lead with Dutch pink; and for purple, rose pink and Prussian blue.  These colors are first to be finely triturated with spirit of wine, when a small proportion of gall is to be added, and the grinding of the whole to be repeated.  The proper quantity of gall can be ascertained by comparative trials, because there must be only such a proportion of it used, as will suffer the spots of the various tinting matter to unite, when sprinkled on the solution of tragacanth, without intermixing or running into each other.  The whole being thus prepared, the solution is to be poured into different vessels, according to the colors employed, which are to be sprinkled on the surface, and the process of marbling is completed by laying the paper on the mixture, in the manner above directed.

CXLII.  How to prepare a transparent paper to chalk with.
    In order to render themselves  sooner and more easily masters of chalking neatly, and not to go out of the fine turns and outlines of a drawing, beginners should first know how to prepare a transparent paper which as it lets them see the minutest parts of the strokes as through a glass, gives them of course an opportunity of acquiring by practice, a correctness, precision, and truth, in the expression of all the turns of a piece of drawing, be it whatever it may.  This preparation is as follows.
    1.  Have one of several sheets of fine and very thin paper, and rub them over with oil, or spirit of turpentine mixed in double the quantity of oil of nuts.  To cause the paper to imbibe that mixture, steep a sponge or feather in it, which pass on both sides of the paper, and then let it dry.
    2.  When you want to use it, lay it on a print.  Then with a brush, a pencil, or a pen, pass over all the stroke lines and turns of the design laid under.  You may even thus learn to shade with neatness, if you colour that same design while fixed on the original print, with India ink.
    Thus practicing often, and for a certain while, you may learn to draw very neatly, and even with boldness, provided you apply with attention.  This method will certainly prove agreeable, useful, and entertaining, for those who have not the patience to learn by the common method, which seems too tedious to some, and generally frustrate beginners.

 

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