Where Art Begins

by Hume Nisbet

If he has been imitating a piece of real wood, like the artist with his picture, he will select one of the many changes which the different lights reveal to him on that bit of wood: thus, where the light strikes direct, the figures will shine out whitely; but out of the range of light they will appear dark. The grainer who is an artist will take as his guide the light falling from the windows, and where they touch directly upon the doors or dadoes or skirting-boards, there he will place his highest lights, leaving the darker portions to be put on during the second stage.

If it is a door he is graining, he will put the ‘champs’ and rat-tails in the panels, plain comb the upright ‘styles’ or sides, and make knot-work on the cross-bars; to make knots he uses his finger with a dab first, then with his notched cork draws the outer waves which recede from the central knot, finishing off with a few flourishes with his nail. When this is done he will soften the whole effect by trailing his finest comb over the cork-work. To do this with more artistic effect he will use a comb of which he has purposely broken the teeth at intervals. Every grainer breaks his own combs and cuts his own peculiar notches in his corks to suit his own fancy, and, like a good painter with his brushes, he does not like any other worker to use them.

The over-graining may be finished in one working, or if the job is an expensive one, continued, in a very subtle spirit, over several workings.

For this he requires in water-colour Vandyke brown, raw and burnt siennas, a little blue-black, some stale beer, a sponge, a piece of chamois leather, one over-grainer or more, a couple of wipers, sash-tool, camel-hair softener, and a few sable or camel-hair pencils or ‘riggers.’

The stale beer he uses as a medium to keep the door or panel from ‘sissing,’ or running off in globules—i.e. to make the distemper colours lie flat and cover the oil paint below; also to act as a fixative when the pigments dry.

Before the grainer begins to work he soaks his chamois leather in the stale beer and washes his work carefully over; this stops the ‘sissing’ tendency. He next dips his sash-tool charged with beer into his water-colours. Vandyke brown will be the tint mostly used in oak, although as he proceeds he may require in portions touches of raw or burnt sienna, or where he wants to represent the effect of damp and green in the wood, a little blue-black or even a touch of Antwerp blue. The over-grainer must be an artist, or he had better shade his work plainly with Vandyke brown, and do as little over-graining as possible.

He will next with his sponge wipe out lights here and there, and with his scumblers or over-grainers trail them over the underwork, softening the harshnesses out discreetly with his softener. With his wipers—i.e. short stumpy flat brushes—he will take out straight horizontal lights here and there on the styles, draw shadows together with his softener on the cross-bars, and generally work or fake about so as to produce the effect of light and shadow.

When this is dry, which will be in about half an hour, the work is ready for the finishing stages, the pencilling of shadow veins and ‘champs,’ and loose over-graining.

He uses his riggers or long-haired pencils with a free but careful hand, still keeping in his mind how the lights from the windows are likely to strike upon his work. After this is dry, he takes his longest over-grainer, and having charged it with a thin wash of colour, he first draws a hair comb through it to separate the hairs, and next passes this wash in tremulous lines over his work, where required, softening the lines adroitly with his softener as he goes along. The work is now ready for the final stage of all, the coat of varnish.

This is how a piece of imitation oak is wrought up by a skilful workman, very similar to the way in which a drawing or a painting is produced. If the workman is hurried, through cheapness of price, or ignorance, the work may be like the abominations which so often greet us on common doors, or those awful oleographs which decorate the walls of workmen’s cottages; but if well done the result is such that it must gratify the eye of any lover of nature, because he can then look upon the very best sample, or rather translation, of the wood, in the same sense that a fine picture is the translation of the finest and most select portions of nature.