Next to the greens in popularity as fine panel colors come the blues, ultramarine blue ranking as the most widely used of the various varieties. The elegance and aristocratic effects obtained by the employment of ultramarine blue are secured only by the development of a ground work free from imperfections. As a matter of fact, the successful use of almost every coach color, whether used as a glazing color or otherwise, is contingent upon the quality of the ground color and upon such a harmonious assimilation of the different coats as will promote the greatest elasticity and permanence. Of the ultramarine blue there are three shades, light, medium, and dark. Most color manufacturers prepare and sell ground colors adapted to the different shades of the blue, the ultramarine being invariably used as a color-and-varnish or glazing coat. Nevertheless, it is often necessary, even if not desirable, to shop prepare the ground color for the ultramarine blues when wanted.
For the light shade of ultramarine blue, Prussian blue and a superior grade of white lead are so combined as to produce a blue of good depth and body, unusual care being taken to have the blue and white thoroughly united and beaten into one indivisible pigment. If keg lead be used in making the ground, the oil should be first completely washed out of the pigment with benzine or turpentine, and varnish, instead of oil, be employed as the color binder. This practice provides for sure and reliable drying of the ground color. The ground for the medium ultramarine blue may be made of the ingredients above stated, the color being simply adjusted to a deeper shade of blue, more blue and less white being used in the admixture. In both the light and the medium, the ground color should approximate the glaze color and enhance the richness of effect. For the dark shade of ultramarine blue, a coat of lampblack furnishes a most excellent and effective ground color.
Probably the richest effect in blue is furnished by glazing ultramarine blue over a ground of very deep green. Transparent cobalt blue, a glaze color always, requires a ground of Prussian blue and white. Body cobalt is used as a solid color, and for a panel color on traps, breaks, and vehicles of that order it produces admirable and fetching effects. The glaze colors are best used in a flowing medium of elastic rubbing varnish, especially when body surfaces are being coated, and the brushes adapted to applying such colors are the 1 1/2-inch and the 2-inch badger flowing brush or a soft, half-elastic bristle brush suited to the size of the panels being coated.
REDS, WINES, AND OTHER COLORS OF THE RED ORDER.
For warmth and brilliancy of color effects, carmine among a long list of gorgeous reds, is without a rival. Carmine is a glaze color exclusively, and the splendor of its radiance is governed entirely by the ground color. Carmine, along with its near relatives of the red order, has a decided tendency to fade, flake, and chip off. The ground color, therefore, must, in addition to being faultless in color density and surface features, be possessed of great enduring qualities. It may be accepted as a rule worthy of practice that the ground colors for the general order of reds should be mixed with a binder of varnish sufficiently strong to impart to them when dry at least a faint gloss—an egg-shell gloss, if it please my community of readers. A ground so prepared is fortified to counteract the fading and flaking properties of such of the reds as are used as glaze colors.
To secure a first-class job of light carmine, bring the surface up level and smooth, and then apply a coat of peach-blow color, made of white and some one of the ordinary reds. Over this apply a coat of deep English vermilion, using the vermilion stoutly charged with rubbing varnish. Polish this coat, when dry, with curled hair and apply a second coat of the vermilion, adding a sufficiency of varnish to convert the mixture to the color-and-varnish class. At the proper time this coat should, preferably, be rubbed lightly with pumice stone and water. Next apply a coat of clear rubbing varnish, which in due time also demands rubbing with pulverized pumice stone and water. Then to rubbing varnish, elastic or quick, hard drying, as the size of the surface may dictate, add enough of No. 40 carmine to fully stain the liquid, say 3/4 of an ounce of carmine to one full pint of varnish (many first-class painters use 1/2 oz. carmine to 1 pint of varnish), and apply to the surface, be it body or gear, with a soft badger or bristle brush. For a less expensive job, omit the coat of clear rubbing varnish and apply the carmine directly to the vermilion.
A method easier to carry into execution in painting a carmine job consists in adding a little carmine to the last coat of vermilion color-and-varnish. This coat is rubbed with curled hair; then carmine is added to varnish, as in the first method, after which a small quantity of vermilion is put in to give the mixture opacity or covering power. Clouding and such other incidental imperfections to be considered in connection with the work of one not really an expert in the manipulation of glaze colors, is thereby avoided. For a darker carmine, use a ground of flamingo red, carmine red (a solid color), road-cart red, Kalliston red, or permanent scarlet, dark shade, the latter color requiring a light vermilion ground.
In applying carmine to wheels, it is advisable to flow the whole wheel at once, instead of doing them in sections, as by this practice a cleaner, clearer, and more satisfactory job is secured. For the gear, do the whole of one end of it before wiping up, then the final end, finishing with the reach and side bars, if there be side bars. To obtain the real purple and fine linen of carmine effects, the color-and-varnish requires to be flowed on freely and quickly, and promptly slicked up. Pottering and sectional patching up invites inferior results.
The vermilions, of which there is at present quite a formidable list, ranging from the glaring light shades to the glowing dark ones, all bespeak carefully prepared and durable grounds, if satisfactory wearing and appearing qualities are to be attained. Vermilions may properly, it would seem, be classed among the fugitive colors, and their retention of purity of color is therefore dependent upon the grounds employed to support them. As previously stated, a peach-blow color forms a good ground for vermilion. It should be made to dry with an egg-shell gloss so as to overcome the fading propensity of the vermilion. Then let the first coat of vermilion have a decided gloss. The final coat of vermilion is placed as color-and-varnish. Linseed oil should not be used in vermilion, as it darkens the color and destroys its brilliancy. Ditto japan.
The large class of modern reds known under such alluring titles as C. P. red, flamingo red, brilliant coach red, Ottoman red, Kalliston red, etc., are usually applied over ground colors specially supplied by the manufacturer. With but few exceptions, such reds are used in this way: One coat of color, one coat of color-and-varnish, "dead," or lustreless, coats being carefully avoided.