My dear Leighton,—In reply to your last note about the use of the wall itself rather than of canvas, there can be no doubt on the subject, if only the plaster is good and well put on. You speak of two or three months to get it dry. I assure you that that is not near enough. When the surface feels dry to your hand you must not suppose that it is all dry inside, and if the wall is new, I doubt a year being enough to dry it. The water must evaporate somewhere—it is drawn to the surface of interiors because they are the warmest.
You ask whether the rough cast on the wall must be scraped off before you wash the wall for painting. If by the rough cast you mean rough plaster, which is a totally different thing to rough cast, certainly use it as it is. The coarser the plaster the better, because it is all the more porous, so long only that it is of the best materials (viz. perfectly washed sand, and good lime), and well put on a good wall. Nothing in the world could equal it for painting upon, except a surface of coarse clean Bath stone, with all its pores open. If you have such plaster as I have just described, and both it and the wall thoroughly dry, nothing could be better. The smooth surface, with what granulated texture you please, can be got according to the directions in my paper—viz. after two or three washes of pure diluted medium, give another or two more of the same, with dry whiting and a little white-lead, then go ahead while it is all fresh, viz. two or three days after the process of preparation has been completed.
Take care in painting not to rub it up too much, for fear of drawing up the glossy resins to the surface away from the wax. Paint right into your prepared surface solidly and with decision in the way of fresco painting, not as oil. Keep the brush clean, and the volatile oil in the dipper clean, and then, oh! how shall I envy you your power to use them all![30]
At the Ely ceiling, which is of hard wood not porous, but prepared with three coats of oil white-lead, I am painting with
| Liquid Measure. | |
| Pale drying oil | 2 |
| Japan gold size | 2 |
| Turpentine | 2 |
| Artist copal | 1 |
well shaken up every time it is used. The colours are all ground up in it, and then painting is done as in water-colour, using pure spirits of turpentine as a vehicle. Colours dry extremely rapidly and with a dead surface. The stuff looks horribly black, but the colours are not materially affected by it. Of course it is not to be compared with my former medium, because there is that bane of the palette oil in it, but I used it because of its great facility (used transparent like water-colour on a white ground), and because the surface was hard, so that wax might (in great heat) shrink or play tricks on it, as it has done in Murillo's pictures and many others.—Ever most sincerely yours,
T. Gambier Parry.
If I can do anything for you, command me; we go to Scotland on the 14th.
London, April 26, 1863.
Dearest Mamma,—You were no doubt surprised to see a sock arrive in Bath in solitary grandeur, unaccompanied by any sort of note. The fact is, for some days past I have been working at a rate which made me altogether unfit for correspondence. I have just returned from Lyndhurst, where I have been doing a bit more fresco—and very stiff work it was—up and at work at seven, and at it best part of the day, perched generally on an uncomfortably narrow ladder, and with my head almost blown off by the agreeable but overpowering smell of the vehicle with which I painted. The result is as far as it goes tolerably satisfactory—everybody there is delighted, and though that, of course, does not prove much, it is at all events agreeable to me that they derive so much pleasure from my work. The stained-glass window, too, which has been executed at my desire from Jones' designs, gives great satisfaction—is a lovely piece of colour, and (which was, to me, of paramount importance) does not hurt my fresco, though, of course, in the nature of things, it outshines tenfold in point of brilliancy; hence the folly, to my mind, of ever putting glass and wall painting in immediate juxtaposition. I shall go and paint another slice in June, after which Aïdé leaves, so I may not be able to finish my work till he returns in autumn. On my road to Lyndhurst, I paid a visit to Lady Dorothy Neville (Lady Pollington's sister) at Dangstein—a very beautiful place near Petersfield.