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!!

Framed?

I figured I'd put up a shot of the frame sculpture so far. This is clay over a wood form. This will be molded, and castings of this will be used to build the pattern for the frame moulding. The moulding will be cast up in 6 foot long sections, and cut to fit the painting. The pattern is slightly different on the top and bottom than the sides, and this will be accounted for in the pattern piece.

The final frame will most likely be a thin plaster layer cast over clear pine or a similar wood, and gold leafed.

I'll be researching more about frame construction as I go, and of course I'll try to be accurate with my construction methods to the period and to the original frame.

Testing, testing...

Well, okay. I've been testing materials, so I decided to post a shot of my test. This is on plywood, testing the ground layers and an emulsion layer along with hand ground oil paints and a new glazing medium. The ground layer is gesso, a pretty traditional ground for tempera painting, which moved into use for oil painting as well, since oil was a pretty new medium 500 years ago. Painting grounds in Italy at the time were usually made using a glue derived from parchment scraps soaked in water to which whiting, in the form of calcium sulphate, was added. I made mine from rabbit skin glue (parchment scraps are pieces of animal hides) and calcium sulphate. I applied 2 or 3 layers of that gesso. I sealed half that surface with an emulsion ground of gesso mixed with water and lead white pigment. The (VERY rough) painting above shows the supposed colors that were used to paint the Mona Lisa. Spectral analysis of the paint surface was used to identify minerals in the paint layer. I bought as many of the pigments identified as I could locate. Then I mixed my paints using powdered pigments and grinding them with a muller into walnut oil. I packaged the mixed paints into tubes. The last thing I wanted to research and test was a glazing medium, since it's pretty well accepted that Leonardo (and pretty much every renaissance artist) painted a monochromatic underpainting, then laid transparent glazes of color over that to finish their work. The glaze medium I tested is made from Sanderac varnish (Juniper resin) and walnut oil. A passage from Leonardo's notebooks mentions these materials, and it seemed a good place to start.

My plan is to paint the piece as it may have looked when it was newly finished. Then, I'll apply a colored varnish to seal and finish the painting. The second picture with this post is a Photoshopped version of the picture of the test painting with a darkening layer over it.



This gives me an idea of how accurate the underlying colors are. Not too bad so far!

And, I have to include my disclaimer. I know the drawing of the painting and the color blends are not correct in my test panel. I wasn't trying to be dead on in appearance at this stage, just testing materials.

(As a side note, the test painting is on a chunk of plywood that also had a large amount of Karo syrup stage blood all down one side of the panel. THAT'LL be interesting once the red starts showing through the paint!)

The Hurrier I Go...

I guess that not writing for a spell is a sure sign that I'm researching my brains out! I've been busy combing the web for as much information and materials as I could get my hands on.
I've found a supplier of natural pigments, called, appropriately enough, Natural Pigments, that has nearly every renaissance era oil painting supply that one could hope for. I used the book I've mentioned as my reference point and listed, according to spectral analysis, the pigments Leonardo used on the Mona Lisa. I've bought raw pigments and ground them into paint using walnut oil as my medium. My sources tell me that Leonardo used walnut oil as well.
From the same supplier, I've gotten Italian Gesso (calcium sulfate). This will be mixed into a solution of hide glue and painted on the poplar panels. I've tested the gesso and oils on plywood panels of the correct size while I'm waiting for the real panels form the lumberyard back east. I've also tested a few formulations of emulsion grounds to use as an intermediate layer between the gesso and paint.
Recently, I did some research on possible glazing media for oil. Something which Leonardo might have used. One article I read about renaissance mediums included a tranlation from one of Leonardo's notebooks in which he specifies juniper resin mixed with walnut oil as a good varnish. Information I've found from various sources indicates that a resin mixed with oil and turpentine is a good general formulation for a glaze meduim. I have sandarac (juniper) resin on order along with unfiltered walnut oil to test as a possible glaze medium.

In addition, I've been doing as much scrutinizing and researching of the actual painting as possible. There are MANY subtleties that will be very challenging to pull off. Even though Lisa isn't wearing any jewelry, she is covered in silk veils. her hair, shoulders and upper arms are all covered with see-through, filmy material. Fine, fine black silk gauze. Did I mention that Lisa's husband is a silk merchant? All that silk is no accident...

This will definitely be challenging to paint!

The general sequence will be:

2 coats of gesso
perhaps a layer of emulsion ground
lead white priming
yellow ocher imprimatura
underdrawing with copper acetate
underpainting with burnt umber and white lead
glazing and finishing

Leonardo's technique was so refined as to be invisible. Conservators frequently mention the complete absence of brush strokes on Leonardo's paintings.

I'll be doing 2 copies simultaneously. One will be aged, and the second left to appear as the Mona Lisa may have looked new. Each will be framed, as the real painting is, in a flexible oak frame and a decorative frame.

I'll post pictures as soon as I've started!