First of all I bought yards and yards of thick canvas, a sort of sacking. It refused to be joined together by machine, and broke endless needles when the seams were sewn by hand. It appeared to me at the time as if oakum-picking could not blister fingers more severely. After all my trouble, when finished and stretched along a wall in the store-room in the basement, with the sky part doubled over the ceiling (as the little room was not high enough to manage it otherwise), the surface was so rough that paint refused to lie upon it.
I had purchased endless packets of blue and chrome, vermilion and sienna, umber and sap-green; but somehow the result was awful, and the only promising thing was the design in black chalk made from a sketch taken on Hampstead Heath. Sticks of charcoal broke and refused to draw; but common black chalk at last succeeded. I struggled bravely, but the paint resolutely refused to adhere to the canvas, and stuck instead to every part of my person.
Photo by Hall, New York.
MR. WEEDON GROSSMITH.
At last some wiseacre suggested whitewashing the canvas, and, after sundry boilings of smelly size, the coachman and I made pails of whitewash and proceeded to get a groundwork. Alas! the brushes when full of the mixture proved too heavy for me to lift, and the unfortunate coachman had to do most of that monotonous field of white.
So far so good. Now came “the part,” as the gallant jehu was pleased to call it.
It took a long time to get into the way of painting it at all. The window had to be shut, the solitary gas-jet lighted, endless lamps unearthed to give more illumination while I struggled with smelling pots.
Oh, the mess! The floor was bespattered, and the paint being mixed with size, those spots remain as indelible as Rizzio’s blood at Holyrood. Then the paint-smeared sky—my sky—left marks on the ceiling—my father’s ceiling—and my own dress was spoilt. Then up rose Mother in indignation, and promptly produced an old white garment—which shall be nameless, although it was decorated with little frills—and this I donned as a sort of overall. With arms aching from heavy brushes, and feet tired from standing on a ladder, with a nose well daubed with yellow paint, on, on I worked.
In the midst of my labours “Mr. Grossmith” was suddenly announced, and there below me stood Weedon Grossmith convulsed with laughter. At that time he was an artist and had pictures “on the line” at the Royal Academy. His studio was a few doors from us in Harley Street.