Second time's a charm. (I hope!)

The hero panel has been re-gessoed! Hopefully it'll dry well, and will be sanded smooth next weekend. I tried a little something different with the process this time, ordering Italian rabbit skin glue to mix the gesso. It's an interesting product; darker thatn the stuff I'd been using, but lightens considerably when hydrated and melted. I applied the gesso with a wide brush and smoothed it with a thin, flexible scraper so that hopefully sanding will be minimized.
Once it's dry and smooth, I'll need to seal and prime the surface. In cross sections of Leonardo's work, it appears as though there's not a sealer between the gesso and the white lead layer. On my test panel, I tried applying a thin coat of white lead directly to the smoothed gesso surface. The walnut oil in the paint seems to have penetrated the gesso layer and stained it darker. I'm also thinking that it may compromise some of the gesso's strength. So, even though there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it in the magnified cross sections I've seen, I'm planning on making a dilute solution of white shellac (which is really CLEAR shellac) and denatured alcohol.I'll brush that over the gesso surface to seal it and protect it from the oil layers that'll be applied over it.
The lead white on the test panel is drying slowly, of course. It's a thin layer that I applied with a wide brush, then used a fan blender to smooth so that it's practically free of brush strokes. SInce Leonardo's technique was to use many thin colored glazes of paint to achieve the illusion of depth on his paintings, the underlying surfaces have to be as perfectly smooth as possible. Every step requires more research and intense focus.
The oil penetration on the test panel means I'm researching possible reformulations of the white lead priming to make a highly pigmented, thin and somewhat porous paint for priming the hero panel once it's smooth. I'll be having to grind more lead white paint soon, so I'll likely try some experiments with additives to the paint to give it the desired opacity, thinness and absorbency. One possible configuration will be to mix lead white pigment with the powdered gesso mixture I've been collecting as I sand the panels. I'm not sure what properties this will lend the primer, but that's the nature of experimentation, no?

Success!! ...sort of.

Well, after a week or so of diligently scraping down and smoothing the gessoed wood panels, in accordance to the traditional method, I was dismayed at making such slow progress.
The test panel developed a small crack in what I had planned as the top of the painting, almost like the crack that the real painting has that goes from the edge of the painting to the top of Lisa's head. I thought that I might as well try a non-traditional method of smoothing the gesso layer on that panel, and stocked up on various grades of sandpaper.
This morning, I got out my trusty palm sander, plugged it in and sanded away. I used 100 grit to smooth the gesso, and 220 and 600 to finish. It's BEAUTIFUL. Not without flaws, but one can see why the old masters used this surface for painting. It's snow white and smooth as glass. I had thought about doing a few passes over the panel with 1000 grit paper, but it's not supposed to be too shiny. The layer has small pinholes in it from the gesso being stirred too vigorously and standing on the heat too long, but I'm hoping they won't be noticeable in the final painting. And this is the test panel, after all. When I redo the gesso on the hero panel, I'll be more aware of those issues. I also decided that I'll invert the panel and put the crack at the bottom in the darker areas of the painting.
The hero panel has such severe cracking at the joint between the panel and the frame that it'll have to be stripped and redone. It's got damp rags on the surface now, and I should be able to scape off the gesso this evening. I've ordered new supplies and will re gesso that panel once things arrive.

The Gesso-ing!

Here's the first picture of the hero wood panel after a gesso grosso (a thicker undercoat of gesso) layer and five coats of gesso sotille (which is a thinner, surfacing gesso). I'm hoping that it'll dry nicely. There's a bit of grit in the gesso sotille that I'm not crazy about. If it sands out well, then I'll be satisfied. If not, I'll be removing the gesso and starting again! The panel as shown has been cut and shaped to the right size and put into a pine frame constructed like the flexible oak frame the actual painting is supported by. And of course the test panel is seen in the background. from this point if all goes well, the panel will be smoothed to a totally perfect surface and primed with lead white, and the drawing of the subject transferred to the panel. Then it's ink and underpaint time!

Let the Project Begin!

So, I'm back in LA, my wood panels have passed muster, and I've begun the project in earnest!

I've cut my test panel down to the final dimensions, and am ready to cut the favored panel to the same dimensions. I found that when I enlarged plates from the Mona Lisa book, the enlargements weren't correct. The length was right, but the width was a half inch too narrow according to published dimensions of the painting. After some head scratching, I decided that unless the camera with which the photos were taken was EXACTLY parallel to the surface of the painting, some distortion would occur in the image. I adjusted the plates in Photoshop using the tilt tool to eliminate the distortions, but then wanted to be sure that the panel would still be relatively square in spite of its uneven edges. I cut the first panel, then built a frame for it to check the panel's fit. It looked pretty good!

I'll now cut the actual panel to size (let's call it the hero panel) and build frames for each (the test and the hero panel) to keep the panels from warping during the priming and painting processes. The state of the Mona Lisa's panel shows that it was most likely primed and painted in a frame attached to the wood panel as it came from a guild carpenter for painting. I'll be recreating that in mine, of course.

I've noticed that the hero panel began to cup slightly almost immediately after I uncrated the panels. The warping is similar to what the actual painting is doing, so I'm oddly encouraged by this!

I'll be applying sizing and applying gesso to the panels soon. And be ready for progress pictures!

I'll also be shooting videos of the work in progress and posting those as I go.

The Wood Panels Have SHIPPED!

This is a photograph of the (2) wood panels cut and finished by Smith Lumber in Pennsylvania. The panel on the left is a very close match in grain pattern to the panel used for the Mona Lisa. This will likely be the favored panel for the painting, with the panel on the right relegated to secondary status. There were some problems along the way, but the panel are cut, finished and shipped. I'll do the final trimming and start the ground preparation SOON!

Things I learned on the way to learning other things....

Okay. The journey takes as long as the journey takes, eh?

I'm currently awaiting the wood panels (STILL) from the lumberyard in PA. This is fine, as I'm out of town anyway, working on a zombie TV series to make money to make art. I've spent some of my free time researching renaissance frames, egg tempera, and classical treatises on painting. Here's what I've found so far.

I'm trying to get into the mindset of an artist trained in traditional painting techniques and working with new, experimental materials. Leonardo was apprenticed to Andrea del Verrocchio when he was about 14, from what I recall. He likely was trained by the maestro to use techniques catalogued by Cennino Cennini in his treatise on painting. This would include the selection and preparation of a wood panel as a support, the application of the paint layer (which was traditionally the fast-drying egg tempera paint rather than slower drying oil paint, which was only just coming into use in Leonardo's time). So, artists of Leonardo's day would likely prepare wood panels in the method used for tempera. That is to say, using a glue gesso on a wood support. Canvas wasn't used for egg tempera, since traditional gesso would flake off the surface. Gesso wasn't a flexible ground. So wood panels were preferred as a painting support.

Next was the application of egg tempera paint. Since egg tempera was a fast-drying water thinned medium, its properties dictated the method painters used. Application needed to be in thin, transparent layers over a very detailed underpainting. Leonardo used egg tempera in early paintings, and that work likely shaped the technique he ultimately used for oil paintings like the Mona Lisa. Even in tempera works, Leonardo applied his trademark sfumato, or smokiness which characterized his paintings throughout his lifetime. I can imagine that Leonardo used a very similar technique regardless of medium, so that his work had a consistent feel.

What does that mean to The Mona Project?

That I've begun to research egg tempera as well as the other things I'm learning, to try to ascertain what techniques Leonardo may have applied in each medium. I've also begun to read Cennino Cennini's treatise on painting, which was, according to some, the gospel as regarded painting in renaissance-era Italy. I'll see if I need to modify any of my preparation or painting techniques to bring me more in line with renaissance standards. And of course, always comparing things to the research compiled in Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting, just to be as accurate as possible in the final product.

Oh, I was told by the lumberyard that my wood panels were jobbed out to an Amish guy to kiln dry. I sort of like that idea. More in keeping with what would have been done 500 years ago, I imagine. The panels are supposed to come out of the oven today, and be shipped soon! I hopefully will have them waiting when I get back to LA.

Wood's in the oven!

I got a confirmation that the cut wood panels are drying and will be shipped around July 6th! Almost time to paint!!