83. How are the edges to be softened?
84. How is the overgraining done?
85. What is said of combination oil and distemper work?
86. How is the work finished?
LESSON XVII.
GRAINING QUARTERED OAK IN DISTEMPER.
87. There is a great deal of quartered oak graining that is done in distemper in certain localities, especially where the grainers have come into the knack of it. When it is well done it is fully as good as when done in oil. The quality of the work is what counts, and it is just as easy to produce an eye sore in the one as it is in the other.
88. It is true that the operator has no time to take a nap and hardly to bat his eyes, and that no doubt is the reason why so few grainers attempt quartered oak in distemper. The colors do dry very quickly, so the graining must be done without hesitation or waste of time. If it has been practiced on the lesson boards mentioned in paragraph 72 no one who has succeeded on them need be afraid of tackling it on door panels, etc.
89. Everything in the way of colors, sponges, rags, overgrainers, blenders and tools being ready and within reach, the woodwork to be grained should be washed over with water into which vinegar has been poured. When it has become nearly but not quite dry, proceed to lay on the color in streaks with the overgrainers, then with the rubber or fine steel combs run through the lines in order to break them up and to serrate them, and immediately proceed with the rag and thumb or the rubber substitute for it to wipe out the champs and flakes in the way and manner described in the wiping out of oak in oil graining; soften the edges by using the soft cotton rag in the same way also. It is needless to say that one panel at a time is all that should be colored up, and even this will be found too much by many, but it can be done and it is not so difficult as it looks to be; only, as said before, there is no time to think of the “girl you left behind you” or anything else but doing the work.