1. The painting which is the subject of this article relates to
forming letters and sometimes ornamental and significant figures on
signs, as well as to the application of paints to houses and other
structures, for the purpose of improving their appearance, and of
preserving them from the influence of the atmosphere and other
destructive agents.
2. The substances capable of being employed by the house and sign
painter, comprise a great variety of articles, derived from the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms; but he ordinarily confines
his selection to but few, among which are white lead, litharge,
Spanish brown, yellow ochre, chrome yellow, red ochre, terra di
sienna, lampblack, verdigris, linseed-oil, spirits of turpentine, and
gold-leaf.
3. White lead and litharge are manufactured in great quantities at
chemical works, sometimes established for the express purpose of
making these and some other preparations of lead. The substances of
which we are now speaking, are produced in the following manner: the
lead, in form of a continued sheet, about three feet long, six inches
wide, and one line in thickness, is wound spirally up in such a
manner, that the coils may stand about half an inch apart.
4. The metal in this form is placed vertically in earthen vessels, at
the bottom of which is some strong vinegar. These vessels, being
placed in sand, horse manure, or tan, are exposed to a gentle heat,
which causes the gradual evaporation of the vinegar. The vapor thus
produced, assisted by the oxygen which is present, converts the
exposed surface into a carbonate of lead, the substance known as white
lead, or ceruse.
5. The corrosion of one of these sheets occupies from three to six
weeks, during which time it is repeatedly uncoiled and scraped.
Litharge, or flake white, is nothing more than the densest and
thickest scales produced in the manner just described. It can be
obtained in a pure state from the dealers in paints, whereas the white
lead of commerce is most commonly adulterated with chalk.
6. Spanish brown, yellow ochre, and terra di sienna, are earths
impregnated with iron in different degrees of oxydation. Red ochre is
yellow ochre burned. Chrome yellow is extensively manufactured in
Baltimore, from the chromate of iron, found near that city. In
chemical phraseology, the manufactured article is the chromate of
lead, since the chromate is separated from the iron by the aid of a
solution of the nitrate or acetate of lead.
7. Linseed-oil is obtained from flax-seed by pressure. It is
afterwards filtered, and then suffered to remain at rest, to
precipitate and clarify. This oil improves in quality by keeping, as
it becomes, in a few years, as transparent as water. In this state, it
is employed in the finest painting.
8. Before the oil is used, it is commonly boiled with a small quantity
of litharge and red lead, to cause it to dry rapidly, after the paint
has been applied. During the boiling, the scum is removed as fast as
it rises, and this is mixed with inferior paints of a dark color.
Linseed-oil, thus prepared, is vended by dealers in paints, under the
name of boiled oil.
9. Spirits of turpentine is produced by distilling with water the
resinous juice or sap of several species of the pine. The residuum,
after distillation, is the turpentine of commerce. Spirits of
turpentine is mixed with paints, to cause them to dry with rapidity.
Like oil, it improves with age, and it is sold in the same manner by
the common wine measure.
10. White lead, and several other principal paints, are purchased in
their crude condition, and reduced to a state of minute division in
paint-mills. They are afterwards mixed with boiled oil, and put up in
kegs of different sizes for sale. Many articles, however, are
pulverized, and sold in a dry state. The preparation of paints is
commonly a distinct business, and very few painters seem to be
acquainted with the mode in which it is performed.
11. In mixing colors for house and sign painting, white lead forms the
basis of all the ingredients. This the color preparer, or the painter
himself, modifies and changes by the addition of coloring materials,
until it is tinged with the proposed hue. The pigments derived from
vegetable bodies, produce, when first applied to surfaces, a
brilliant effect; but they cannot long resist the combined influence
of air and light, while the mineral colors, in the same exposure,
remain unchanged.
12. Painters, in the execution of their work, commonly lay on three
coats of paint. In communicating a white, the two first coats are
composed of white lead and oil; and in the last, spirits of turpentine
is substituted for the oil, for the inside work. For the outside of
buildings, especially in warm and dry climates, this liquid is
inapplicable, since it causes the paint to crack and flake off. It is,
however, frequently used, when the painter is compelled to do his work
at too low a rate, or when he is regardless of his reputation.
13. For other colors, the composition for the different coats is the
same, except for the two last, in which other coloring substances are
added to the materials just mentioned, to give the proposed hue. The
tools for painting houses are few in number, and consist chiefly of
brushes of different sizes, made of hog's bristles.
14. _Graining_ is understood, among painters, to be the imitation of
the different species of scarce woods used for the best articles of
furniture. But the manner in which this kind of work is executed can
be hardly gathered from a concise description, although it may be
easily learned from a practical exhibition of the process by a
painter.
15. _Ornamental painting_ embraces the execution of friezes and other
decorative parts of architecture on walls and ceilings. The ornaments
are drawn in outline with a black-lead pencil, and then painted and
shaded, to give the proper effect. Some embellishments of this kind
are executed in gold-leaf, in the same manner with gold letters on
signs. This kind of work is called _gilding in oil_.
16. Painting in oil, as applied to the execution of designs, seems to
have been invented, or at least to have been brought into notice, in
the early part of the fifteenth century, by John Van Eyck, of
Flanders. Before this time, house-painting, so far as the exterior was
concerned, could have been but little, if at all, practised.
17. One profitable branch of common painting is that of painting and
lettering signs. In performing this kind of work, the sign is first
covered with two or three uniform coats of paint. The letters are next
slightly sketched with chalk or a lead-pencil, and then formed in
colors with a camels'-hair brush. When the letters are to be gilt, the
process, so far, is precisely the same. The leaf is laid upon the
letters, while the paint is in a tenacious state, and is suffered to
remain untouched, until the oil has become dry, after which the
superfluous gold is removed. The whole is then covered with an oil
varnish, which, in plain lettering, completes the operation.