Thank you, one of the best video lessons I have ever viewed. I especially like the wet sanding technique. I now feel confident in attempting to make my own boards. Thanks again
Please do not hesitate to ask questions if something goes not the way you expect. Often one has to run into a bunch of problems and then find solutions to be fully confident in the process. As much as I tried to safeguard anything that can go wrong ("Don' do dis or dat" kind of thing), there is always a learning curve. Mary, best of luck, and do not be afraid to make mistakes!
Hi Paul, thanks for making this video. Watching it really makes you fall in love with the process and I'm just lining up my ingredients at the moment. Can you tell me how fine the grit is on your sanding sponge? If you have a product recommendation, that would be great (I'm in the UK)
Sorry, I don't gesso canvas. However, if you look up "The Iconographer's Work" by Mother Iuliania (easily found in Google), in that book she describes the process in detail.
Thank you for this video. I'm so glad I came across it, as I would like to attempt making my own boards to pray the process from start to finish. I have a question regarding the care of the tools. How do you wash and preserve the paint brushes that you use for the gesso? Dish-soap and air-dry? Lastly, do you have videos on gilding techniques?
Hi Maria, I use cheap synthetic brushes I buy at Michael's, and they last quite a few years. At the end of their life-cycle, I buy a new set. They do rust at the ferrule, nothing I can do about it. At the end of the gessoing session, I wash the brushes (and everything) with HOT water and dish soap, and just let everything dry. Hot water dissolves rabbit skin glue and all of it--glue, chalk--is washed away. I don't have a video on water gilding technique. I wanted to make it for years, but I just don't have time. Besides, water-gilding has to be taught by a teacher who observes what the student does and suggests corrections. Any book, any video will tell you what to do, but they cannot correct your mistakes. Somebody knowledgeable has to watch what you are doing and make course corrections. It is difficult to do something like that with a video. I'd have to anticipate all possible mistakes that can happen. Gold leaf does not stick and flakes off? Possible causes: too little water, or is absorbed too quickly, or the gilder waited too long to apply gold leaf etc. Gold is covered with unpleasant yellow stains? Too much water, too much glue in the gilder's liquor, too hard of a push on the leaf, too this, too that... Variables are endless. Do you see my point?
Hello, I am doing a creativity project for my college's humanities class and would really like to make an icon. Would this be considered correct for a Byzantine era icon? Also, is there a prayer schedule as you make the icon or is that only done after the craftsmanship? Thank you so much for the video!
I’d say yes - I have made a few boards with cradled 1/8 inch-thick MDF and hardboard, and it worked. As for alcohol in the gesso, it is entirely optional. In the winter, when the air is very dry, I a don’t add alcohol at all. Lastly, Birch plywood is no longer available (made in Russia, after all), so I switched to HPVA-good grade plywood.
Thank you very much for the detailed and useful video! One question: how do you ensure that water, the RSG and the gesso keep a constant temperature (eg. 37 or 60 celsius), how do you preserve them from overheating/too low temperature?
Hi Edit, I use my secret weapon: a Salton Warming Tray! It is prominently featured in this video. See at 12:00. It has a temperature dial. At the minimal setting, the temperature keeps the same level, and I can dial up when I need it hotter. Check for this model on eBay - I bought mine for about $40 . Salton were at some point out of business but now there are new Salton Hotrays sold at Amazon. However, I don't know if they have temperature dials.
Thank you for a very clear video on the steps necessary to complete a gesso board. I am the director of a website offering online classes for calligraphy and art, egg tempera although not in the traditions of icon painting. I would like to share this with the students. I know that you say it may be reposted and freely shared, but I wanted to check specifically before embedding it on a classroom website. If you would like to look at the website first, please just let me know and I will send it to you. Full credit given to you, of course. With thanks.
If I don't use Jorgensen's E-Z Hold clamps, will God smite me? If I use a proper technique involving a push stick to cut my wood, and forgo the dangerous "shove the piece into the blade" technique you employed, will the Pope still like it? If I cut the first board the correct length on the first cut, and not make two cut top and bottom to achieve the same length, will it affect the holiness of the icon? If I use popular for the strips instead of 1/4" plywood (that you cut cross grained and not with the grain topside) that will certainly weaken faster, is the holy spirit going to shun my piece? If I chamfer the edges of the frame using either a round-over bit on a router table or just use a #3 edge plane instead of gluing it down to the table so as to gouge out the painting surface with a chisel, does that lessen the authenticity of the icon? I should stop there...
Absolutely! It will be totally unholy, demonic, and inauthentic :) Jorgensen's clamps are trice-holy. St. Gregory Palamas speaks of them highly. Of some other Greek. (Zorba?) Push-stick can be used, but it must be specially blessed by an elder from Mount Athos, for a special introductory price of $99. Otherwise remove the riving knife from the table saw and shove the hands into the blade like you do for a blessing. The holiness of icon wholly depends on the evenness of the cut. You MUST cut the board on all four sides, 3 times. Then 12 times. Then 40. (this one is serious though: I don't use 1/4" plywood for strips anymore; too much hassle. These days I rip a piece of pine into thin strips. It is much softer and water gilding looks better on it. I still don't do the routing, and the reason is that I can't get good poplar or ash here in the boondocks). Well, I can go on and on. Being facetious and flippant is my MO.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Just be leary of the sap content of the pine, harder pines are wonderful, like Douglas Fur, but yellow paints and others softer ones can leach acids from the saps if not properly kiln dried (which 95% of all wood these days is not done to adequate standard) meaning it will warp as the sap content hardens. I completely understand about the boondocks, I am in GA and cannot get baltic birch anywhere down here, for this reason, I employ a lot of other woodworking tricks to elevate the durability of the crap I can buy! You pass the "good humor" test!
Chris, thanks! I am leary. Just waiting for the pockets of sap to open up and ooze the contents. By the way, a few years back I ditched baltic birch ply. Lately, there wasn't a panel I got than didn't warp or delaminated. There are a few I still have; they all look like a potato chip. (And taste similarly too). There has been a marked decrease in quality as in anything made in Russia be it plywood or ballet dancers. Finnish-made is $$$$ but the quality is good. For icon boards, I switched to HPVA plywood, birch veneer. Over a hundred icon boards made, not a single one warped, cracked, or became dissolute.
I couldn't find this question in the comments, so apologies if it has been asked, but what is that wooden tool you use to hold the board in place as you cut through on the table saw? I've cut several boards with our table saw but it is difficult to keep them properly in place even with holding tools. I would also love to know where you source your wood. It's been difficult for me to find a good wood source with the quality I'm looking for, mostly baltic birch plywood Grade A or B/BB
Kim, that thing is called "table saw sled" or sometimes "cross-cut sled". They are easy to construct (which I did), and general designs are easily available on the internet. You can also buy one, ready made. Procuring wood is difficult nowadays. Baltic birch plywood, which I had used for ages, is now of such bad quality that I had to switch to HPVA plywood (birch or maple veneer) sold at Loew's and HomeDepot. Getting real wood suitable for gessoed boards is next to impossible, at least not where I am at now.
Amazing thank you so much for all useful information and care that We feel in your work…. Just want to know which alcohol you used? Thank you once again
Hi Paola, Any isopropyl alcohol will do, 60% or 90%, from the local pharmacy (here in the US it is called "rubbing alcohol"). The point of adding alcohol to the liquid gesso is to eliminate all the bubble that might form if gesso is overheated. Probably methyl alcohol should work just fine.
Roberta, if an icon board with "kovcheg" is made out of wood, then yes, the inside part is carved out. These days, it is done with a router. However, plywood is not good for that sort of carving; at some depth, one would just hit the glue/epoxy layer and there is no point of trying to do anything after that. The idea came to me when I saw a Cretan 18-c. icon in a museum. Over the centuries, the glued strips got unglued--not excessively so, but one could see the cracked seams. This gave me an idea to try this on my plywood boards. Plywood offers something that natural wood boards do not: plywood boards are stable and will not warp.
Thanks for this video... so-- no dry sanding at all? Whenever I'm finished with my last wet sand, some sponge/towel "stroke" marks still remain and my board isn't perfectly smooth- a final dry sand seems to be required...Am I doing something wrong? How perfectly smooth is your finished board? Thank you again---
No, I don't do any dry sanding. The foam sanding block suffices. But we all have different hands and different touches, so if you need to give it a light dry sanding, go for it. My boards are quite "perfect", to the point of being like porcelain, which is not always good. There has to be some tooth, even very fine tooth for the paint to grab onto.
Father Mark, Any good chalk will do - that is, used as "whiting" in gilding or gessoing. I used to buy chalk from Kremer Pigments, and their chalk is really good - be it chalk from Champagne, Bologna, or Belgium. As long as it is calcium carbonate, it will work (NOT calcium sulfate!!) One drawback: chalk is not expensive, but shipping it is. Since most art stores do not carry chalk, many settle for an alternative in the form of marble dust, and it works for them. It is a form of calcium carbonate, but in my experiments with it I found it to be less absorbent than chalk. As the result, egg tempera tends to dry very slowly which may result in "lifts". Another drawback is that marble dust is much harder than chalk; if you water-gild and then burnish, such tough gesso may scratch your agate burnisher. A few years back I tired paying high fees for shipping chalk, and the kind people from Rinaldin gave me a great suggestion to look for an alternative in the form of ground limestone, food grade. I found it on Amazon, at a fraction of the price of chalk, and worked with it ever since. However, I first recommend to try a natural chalk since it is more "historic" than ground limestone, just to get to know the material. And after that, try alternatives.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I love this video! I wanted to learn about icon making but I was broke so I had to use the strangest ingredients, ones I had on hand... slaked plaster, supplemental collagen, found wood boards, embroidery linen, etc. It was a learning experience but I wish I could have seen this video. It would have saved me a lot of trial and error! Thank you!
Hello, I would like to ask please, for painting with egg tempera on unprimed masonite is better to attach or (stick) canvas? I appreciate an answer. Thank you very much.
So just to be clear, if I'm painting on marine board (hard plywood, I suppose, that does have a grain, but is smooth) or any other grained wood, I WOULD want to do this technique, with the interlaggio, but if I'm using MDF or hardboard, I can simply gesso? I would like to do some of these using acrylic first, but would like to move to the egg tempera when I have a space to do it (I use acrylic daily for work and would have to move everything, same with oil).
Oh, most definitely you don't need the interlaggio for MDF or hardboard. Interlaggio is only needed to isolate wood grain from gesso so that it does not telegraph through. I painted a few icons on hardboard (braced in the back), and it is an excellent material. ONE THING THOUGH: before you gesso the hardboard, thoroughly wipe it with denatured alcohol. Hardboard's surface contains some residual oil which may cause the gesso to adhere poorly and eventually delaminate. When bracing the hardboard, use 3/4 inch plywood, never pine planks. After a couple of years, pine turns into a twisted mess, and it takes the board with it.
@@paulstetsenko5721 wow, good to know! It's startling how many years I've painted on wood and didn't know this! Just did a cut out fish (marine board, 3/4"), and the collage and paper on it started coming off the wood in humidity during a show. I had to take the whole thing back down to wood. I will take this advice. Thank you!
Hello, can I coat with rabbit skin glue and gypsum directly on birch plywood and paint with egg tempera without linen, or muslin, or cloth, or other else? I am waiting for answering, thank you very much.
Hi Nidal, You can certainly do it. Many iconographers of the past did so; I have seen old icons painted on such boards. The problem with skipping the cloth part is that such gesso is unstable and flakes off with time, in chunks.
@@quicksanddixon6757 It's me playing. In my old days, I used to be a good organist (see my other videos), with all works of Bach under my belt. I recorded Das Orgelbuechlein on my home organ and self-produced a CD in some limited numbers, and sold it at concerts when I was still playing them. They went very quickly, so at this point all I have is digital files stored someplace on my computer.
@@paulstetsenko5721 an iconographer and an organist? very impressive! I found what I was looking for on your channel - ruclips.net/video/q8obIGz443I/видео.html I love this! The sound of the organ at 1:06 is wonderful, thank you!
Morgan, could you please re-phrase your question? Did you mean, how to make a raised border with plywood using a router? Answer: you don't. If you start routing the inside part, you will hit the glue/epoxy that holds the layers together. Then, you'd be gessoing the epoxy layer instead of wood. Hence the method of gluing the strips of wood to create raised border. It is not a novelty; I have seen historic Cretan icons in museums and exhibits that clearly showed that the raised border was glued on rather than hollowed out. Of course, the reason I could see it because with time cracks and delamination occurred :)
@@paulstetsenko5721 it looks like this board on the movie is not in solid Wood?! Am I correct? And have you glued strips to get the border? Or is this board in massive Wood? 🙏
My apologies, I have a few boards where I failed to get the fabric tucked in the edges, and after drying I have some bubbles or gaps between the fabric and the long edges. How can I remedy this?
@@paulstetsenko5721 sorry about that, I have a few boards where the fabric at some of the luzga areas (where board meets raised areas) that have bubbles and or dryed taught and left an empty recess. Should this be fixed?
@@jamesglover831 Yes, that is a problem. You can gesso it over, but those areas will always remain unstable. In my video, watch the trick at 10:40 to prevent that. Even if it has dried, you can still re-wet that area (use hot water), and incise it, and push it into the luzga so it stays put. Work some of 10% glue into it. It should be good after that.
Is there a video on the steps to making the icon after this? I was hoping to attend a class but I don’t think I can now do I really would like to try it at home.
Dear Megan, there is a gazillion of videos on how to paint an icon on RUclips, but none of those will help you. One can learn to make an icon board, or even to gild, but these are rather simple procedures. Learning to paint from videos is like learning to conduct by watching conductors. Most of it will be incomprehensible to you. Now, a good place to start is to go to one of the GOOD iconography workshops that work with beginners. Two of these stand out: the Dainekos (ikona-skiniya.com) and Hexaemeron. Go to any of these and they will give you a good start.
Sir, my wife picked up iconography and started painting using stencils from The School of Proposan, NY. She needs bigger boards ie 14x28 inches which are both expensive and very hard to find so I will try to make them myself. Question: Is there any literature / books I can buy that can be useful?
Mother Iuliania's "The Iconographer's Labor" www.sacredmurals.com/texts/the_iconographers_labor.pdf (I translated this work 6 years ago from Russian, free to download.) Very little is offered in English of comparable value, but there are few books such as "Techniques of icon and wall painting" by Aidan Hart, a few other.
Good day Sir! 🙂 Three questions for you: Are you using plywood in lieu of splined boards, or, if I use a 3/4” thick birch plank will I have to spline the back? Is 250 gram strength hide glue acceptable in place of the 500 gram strength rabbit skin glue? Is plaster of paris considered chalk?
Hi Marcao, 1. Plywood's advantage over regular wood is that it does not warp. Birch panel will eventually warp, so you do need splines in the back. Suggestion: instead of splines in the back, see if you can do side splines. See the book "The Iconographer's Labor" by Mother Iuliania; you can find it online, in PDF. 2. I have never used hide glue. I heard it is very strong but also brittle. I have seen some contemporary icons made on boards with hide glue as a binder for gesso; they were all cracked. I would suggest making a few samples and adding plasticizer (linseed oil or glycerin) and experimenting with it. 3. By no means plaster of Paris is chalk. Chalk is calcium carbonate whereas plaster of Paris is semi-hydrated calcium sulfate; it will turn into solid matter once you mix it with water. Do not use it.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Thank you so much for your response! 🙂 I now have the rabbit skin glue and the chalk on order, and will get some plywood soon. Thanks for the tip on side splines-I’ll look into that too. Have a great day! Marcao
Day 1: cut the board and size it with 5% glue, wait to dry overnight; Day 2: glue the interlaggio, wait overnight to dry; Day 3: gesso the board (this takes a few hours, depending on the size of the board, and humidity and temperature of the room), wait overnight to dry; Day 4: wet-sand the board. DONE.
Since gesso is made of rabbit skin glue, it will quickly spoil even in the fridge. Freezing it, however, kills the glue just as well. Here is what you can do: Place your gesso into a shallow plastic container and put it in a fridge for a few hours; it turns into a rather solid tofu-like brick. Pry it out of the container. Take a piece of paper towel, spray it generously with Chloraseptic until paper towel is wet (Chloraseptic is sold in drug stores over the counter; it is a cold throat medicine which contains phenol, a strong antiseptic). You can cut up solid gesso into smaller cubes, or just take the whole block, and place it on the paper towel. Spray more Chloraseptic onto the brick, then wrap the wet paper towel around it. Put it into a plastic container with an air-tight lid, and store it in a fridge. Protected by the vapors of phenols, it will last indefinitely. When you need it, cut a portion of the stored gesso, melt it in a bein-marie, and it is ready to go. It might have some residual color from Chloraseptic -- and flavor too :) -- but not particularly detrimental.
Hello. An elementary question since I have just in the last couple of days been exposing myself to how icons are made.....I see after several videos the process of preparing the board for the painting is quite involved, but I was wondering if there is a more "modern" method for the preparation, or is it the fact that you are following a time honored tradition? Thank You.
Hi Michael, If you examine ancient icons in person, you will see that they were painted on wooden boards of various species, and all the components of the board are invariable, from country to country, from East to West, from age to age. The time honored tradition has one goal in mind: stability of the painting. Centuries of experimentation and experiences yielded this method, and deviation from it inevitably resulted in tempera paintings that fell apart only a few decades after completion (and sometimes even a few years). The tradition has been kept but also carefully enhanced with innovations. Such were, for instance, the side splines invented in the 18th century, which prevent the board's bending, something that the traditional back splines do only partially. Using plywood instead of cut boards is another innovation; it is also far more affordable and accessible these days, and especially in the US. As for plywood's longevity, this remains to be yet seen. We will know in about 100 years or so. :) If a painter works in egg tempera, he or she must use a sturdy support; canvass will not work for this medium. The support is covered with true gesso, and this is the best material for egg tempera to be painted upon. Of course, if one chooses to work in acrylic (which is a sort of modern tempera with some added benefits yet with egg tempera's luminescence taken away), all of it is additionally simplified as any surface can be covered with acrylic gesso and painted over with acrylic paints. These days, many temperists choose to paint on tempered hadboards or MDF. Gesso sticks to them marvelously, and they do not require gluing on the interlaggio, as there is no wood grain. I painted several icons on tempered hardboard, and I have yet to see problems developing. Another excellent alternative to wood is Artefex aluminum panels made by Natural Pigments, the art materials company in California, run by George O'Hanlon and his wife Tatyana Zaitseva - two most remarkable people one could ever meet. They know EVERYTHING when it comes to art materials, and this statement is not an exaggeration. (I also have a nagging suspicion that George knows EVERYTHING, period.)
Excellent comment. I failed to ask previously, about the boards that were attached to the back on some demonstrations, thinking they were for some type of hanging method, but you say they are for added rigidity. As well as the side pieces you referred to. I will continue my reading. Thanks Very Much.
Michael, Those splines serve several purposes. Made of a harder wood, they may prevent the board from natural warping. Also, these splines may also be part of joinery. The large icon boards (and some of Greek and Russian icons are HUGE) were assembled from several planks, which were rift hewn; complicated joinery was used to keep those planks together. Such boards never warped because of the way they were cut. However, other boards were made from planks that were rip cut and planed. These, of course, were prone to warping; the back splines became common somewhere around the late 14th century. In the 15th-16th centuries, splines were inserted in to the back side of the icon, and they protruded high above the surface; smaller icons would have only one spline. This all changed in the 17th century, when splines were made flush with the surface. They were also made of oak with more elaborate shapes. In the late 17th century, splines were inserted into the sides of the icon instead of the back.
If interested, there is a classic work on the topic of how icons are made, by Mother Iuliania (Sokolova), "The Iconographer's Labor". Yours truly translated it from Russian a while ago. You can download it here: www.american-iconography.info/downloads/Mother%20Iuliania/The%20Iconographer%27s%20Labor.pdf
"The whole purpose of interlaggio is to isolate the woodgrain from the painting. Without the interlaggio, wood grain will begin showing through the gesso only after a few years." This is a half truth, and due to the nature of the prep for the panel to begin with. No seal on the wood allows the wood grains to move, furthermore, the nature of the rabbit skin glue encourages the wood grain to open up as it ages. For this reason, I have moved from rabbit skin glue to a non-organic glue, something not available to artist of the 15-16th century... or anyone before 80 year ago. The main cause of deterioration in paneled works is for the deterioration of the wood, stop that, and most topical problems are avoided. Wood worker employ denatured alcohol to "raise the grain" which allows them to preemptively exaggerate this effect, and then if you seal the wood then sand it, the raised grain effect is greatly reduced before you get to rabbit skin glue layers. Glycerin is a vegetable oil, which will lend itself to rot, or contribute to mold growth in the piece later if the moisture is high, go with linseed oil or something else less organic. Ironic how you mention that in the 15th century they used pumice stone, but today we benefit from "modern" sanding sponges! This literally is the lowest form of upgrade you could have gone with from modern materials, and is probably the worst one to have chosen! Wet sanding this surface will not yield the result you may think it does, unless you reanimated (through heating) the surface and allow the chalk to be reabsorbed into the surface, the wet chalk will form a paste of its own, and be less structural, and less cohesive than the rest of the base gesso you spent so long to achieve, while to the touch this seems like its unified, it is an illusion. Chalk, gypsum, talcum, marble dust, all have varying cohesion properties when worked into a water based paste. Floating this layer atop the rabbit skin glue binder without reheating the glue will weaken the top layer for the adhesion of the oil. Removal of this pasty layer and sanding down to a smooth finish is the better solution. For this reason, I use a dry technique, because the only advantage of using wet sanding is to prevent gumming of the sand paper... and has no other benefit in any circumstance. You would never wet sand a car's surface and leave the dust to dry on the hood, then paint over it! The dust is actually taking up some of the porous nature of the surface and thereby lessoning the natural adhesive properties of the gesso, yet another reason to dry sand, and vacuum the dust out, vacuum, there is another modern advantage we have!
That's one way to look at it. I just recently had to deal with a capricious panel with woodgrain opening up without ceasing. So I sealed it with diluted wood glue. It seemed to stop the problem. I have no idea what the long-term prospective is. It might delaminate in the future, who knows... But plywood might delaminate in any case in about 50 years. We just don't know yet. I used linseed oil a few years back; I didn't dislike it. It did not disperse quite the way I wanted, and tiny droplets remained in the gesso, quite visible. Somebody in gilding circles suggested glycerin; I tried and liked how gesso felt, and decided to stick with it.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I can recommend a solution of no more than 15% water to wood glue, more than that, and you are undermining the wood glue's effectiveness. When applying directly to wood, I go with straight up wood glue. PVA Glue is stronger than the wood itself, and the bonds will outlast the lignin of the wood fibers, so impregnating the outer shell of the wood will no doubt prevent a huge amount of aging right from the start. I have gone so far as to use PVA glue to make my gesso as well. This does mean that it is non-removable in the future, but also prevents many destructive things that occur due to it's rigid hold over the panel. If all else fails, the conservator can remove the panel entirely, and keep the last layer of gesso, replacing everything from the paint back, if its worth doing at all!
Years ago, I decided that gluing fabric to the board was too much work. So I primed the board with a 5% glue, and applied gesso directly to the wood without fabric. Upon drying, gesso cracked. Wood (even plywood) expanded while wet, contracted upon drying and cracked the gesso. The only material you can gesso without gluing fabric is MDF board. I used them, it is an excellent material.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I have MDF! so that I can put a 5% pass, then make a 10% solution with chalk, right? Thank you so much, I am waiting for an answer, thank you!
@@Dive5344 Here is what to do: First, rub the surface of the MDF board with alcohol. It will remove any oily residue left from production. Second step: prepare a generous amount of a 5% rabbit skin glue solution, and size the board 2-3 times, waiting for each coat to dry fully. After that, make your gesso the way you usually make it and begin gessoing the panel. Recipes for gesso vary greatly. I use 10% RSG, the amount of chalk twice that of RSG solution (that is, 1 cup of 10% RSG solution to 2 cups of chalk by volume). Other recipes also exists; Marty Horowitz, for instance, recommends one cup of 8.45% gelatin solution for 1.5 cups of chalk by volume. Do what works for you.
Olga, I never measured it, but it has to be quite warm - but definitely not hot. If it is lukewarm, it is safe enough but then it might take forever for the glue to infuse the whiting. Here is a suggestion: if you can comfortably hold the container in your hands, then the temperature is just right. However, if it is "ouch! that's hot..." then it is too hot. Here is another thought: adding chalk to the glue solution is like adding yeast to warm water when making leavened dough - the same principle. Next time I make a board (which will be in a few days, likely), I will measure the temperature of the gesso solution and let you know. Generally speaking, gesso should not be too warm; otherwise, water evaporates like crazy and you have to add it to the solution all the time. Hassle...
Paul, thank you sooo much! You are such a great person! My first gesso is all with bubbles (I made it before watching your movie), but I definitely overheat it. I'm waiting for your message :)
@@1114Olga There is a solution for accidental overheating of gesso. It is @15:25. In a nutshell: if you accidentally overheated the gesso, cool it down to a lukewarm temperature, and add a squirt of alcohol, and immediately mix it around. The bubble will quickly disappear. Alcohol does not change the nature of gesso as it evaporates (just as water does). The only proportion that is of importance is the proportion between chalk and glue.
@@1114Olga, I just measured the temperature of my gesso. It was 42°C (108°F). It can be cooler or warmer though. Here is a good way to determine the right temperature: stick your hand into the hot water in the bein-marie, and it should be hot, but you should be able to hold your hand in that hot water for a long time without saying "ouch!"
In dir ist Freude - appropriate for Christmas, actually. All pieces are from the same collection Bach's Das Orgelbuchlein, and most of the cycle is organized around the church year. This chorale prelude is on a Christmas song
Probably... You might be right. I sat deer-in-the-headlights all through math classes in school. When I add 2 and 2, I get 22. That being so, these proportions come from many sources on gessoing and water-gilding. One day, a few years back, I decided to line up all the recipes and proportions from many sources. The variations between the proportions varied wildly. The margin between the numbers far exceeded the discrepancy between 20% and 17%. I was very surprised at those variations. Yet, all of them came from legitimate historical sources, and all of them workable. This tells me that the materials involved allow for a very wide margin.
@@paulstetsenko5721 - I've looked for recipes for things in the past like tempera paint and so on and there are many of them. Things like chalk particle size - therefore surface area to mass ratio - are probably a big player. It is what works that matters. for instance, with gilding, I find that a gilder's tip works best with real gold leaf (grease fromone's hair) but not very well with schlag metal but a synthetic tip works best with that (static electricity). Keep up the good work.
@@paulgrosse7631 yep! What synthetic tip do you use for schlag leaf? A synthetic tip for schlag leaf didn't work for me; the leaf does not stick to it, or just barely and falls off at the first opportunity. A piece of acetate worked a bit better but not 100% percent.
@@paulstetsenko5721 A Kilner Gilders Tip 3.5" (1935 - 3.5"). It has a black body and orange coloured hairs which, compared to squirrel, are quite coarse. I found this tip a bit brutal for gold leaf but schlag, cut into two so that it was about the same size as the width of the tip, worked out just right. I brush it against my hair (on my head, what is left of it) and the static seems to hold it in place. I find that I can pick up a piece (maybe 3.5" ish by 2") and then feed it onto the area that I'm working on, just about end on (maybe hold it at an angle of about 70 degrees relative to the work) so that the end is placed fairly accurately and then, move the tip along so that it slides down the tip, onto the work. In that way, I can get it to lie in concave parts of frames without too much bridging.
@@paulgrosse7631 Can you connect with me on FaceBook? (facebook.com/paul.stetsenko) Exchange of info would be useful for both of us. I can do water gilding no problem, but I am getting tired of it and am looking for variety, and schlag leaf (brass, aluminum) offers interesting possibilities.
Using calcium sulphate may result in something the Russian icon-makers refer to as "bubbling gesso" or "boiling gesso" (левкас кипит or левкас закипел). Lots of air-bubbles, pinholes, and ultimately excessive absorption of RSG by the material; the latter may result in weaker adhesion of the gesso layer to the board, and eventually delamination. However, I also believe that these artifacts are not the result of calcium sulphate itself but instead caused by some impurities and inclusions. For instance, chalk from Bologna is a mixture of calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate. I used it a few times, and I had no problems. I did notice a rather excessive amount of air-bubbles during preparation, and also more matte surface of the finished gesso which points to the chalk absorbing RSG more agressively than a purer calcium carbonate. Also, while painting I noticed pinholes forming in the egg tempera's first layer (they disappear under the subsequent coats and glazings, but still... Perhaps, it would be advisable to seal such gesso with a thicker coat of egg emulsion.)
@@paulstetsenko5721 thank you very much for your reply. I used calcium carbonate once, and a lot of bubbles formed, but it was probably because I used a very high temperature. Another question: when you separate glue for the gilding, then to this rsg solution add alcohol, or water?Thanks again for your detailed answers!
@@valeriacorvalan6624 , when I take a small part of RSG from the bigger batch to do water-gilding later, I don't add anything to it, because it is already 10% solution of RSG in water. Of course, when I prepare the bole solution, I do add water (1 part clay, 2 parts RSG, 3 parts water), but that is entirely different process. Let's not mix the two :)
@@valeriacorvalan6624 If you find that you overheated the liquid gesso and millions of air bubbles have formed, just add some alcohol to it. Alcohol decreases the surface tension and all those bubbles will burst. Alcohol does not affect properties of gesso because it evaporates eventually.
That one is prelude on chorale "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar" ("From Heaven came a flock of angels"). All those organ pieces are the complete set of Bach's Das Orgelbuechlein, from start to finish.
Our Orthodox tradition preserved the account of the Holy Apostle Luke taking a simple table top and painting the first image of the Theotokos on it. If a lowly table top was good enough for the Apostle, why should we place ourselves above him and seek some exalted materials for much less spiritual output, pigmies as we are? I will gladly paint on a kitchen unit door - or anything for that matter - when I see that I cannot get quality supports.
My other preference is MDF, (treated, or whatever it is called....). Just a backing frame in the back, and it does not warp at all. And no interlaggio is needed. Gessoing is a peace of cake. But I still somehow prefer wood...
Thank you, one of the best video lessons I have ever viewed. I especially like the wet sanding technique. I now feel confident in attempting to make my own boards. Thanks again
Please do not hesitate to ask questions if something goes not the way you expect. Often one has to run into a bunch of problems and then find solutions to be fully confident in the process. As much as I tried to safeguard anything that can go wrong ("Don' do dis or dat" kind of thing), there is always a learning curve. Mary, best of luck, and do not be afraid to make mistakes!
I must have said WOW! throughout this entire video! Thank You so much for posting this eye opening tutorial!
I love the care you put in your work and your kindness to share.
Thank you for all the details.
Please make more videos. Your
teaching is excellent.
Thank you so much. Fantastic work and care went into this board and video and you are so kind to share it with us.
Thank you, Laurel!
Hi Paul, thanks for making this video. Watching it really makes you fall in love with the process and I'm just lining up my ingredients at the moment. Can you tell me how fine the grit is on your sanding sponge? If you have a product recommendation, that would be great (I'm in the UK)
The sanding sponge for wet-sanding is 220 grit. Look for one made by 3M
Thank you so much for thoroughly explained every litlle detail! You are a master! ❤
Thank you for posting. Very detailed and informative.
Thank you so much. Very clearly explained
Thank you for this video! The use of alcohol was new to me, good tip.
This is so helpful! Thank you!
Very useful, informative and detailed video. Thank you for taking the time to make and upload it.
excellent excellent excellent. ive been trying to find this technique for the past six hours. thank you.
Thank you for all the details. Amazing!!!
Please make a video on how to gesso a canvas.
Sorry, I don't gesso canvas. However, if you look up "The Iconographer's Work" by Mother Iuliania (easily found in Google), in that book she describes the process in detail.
Thank you for this video. I'm so glad I came across it, as I would like to attempt making my own boards to pray the process from start to finish. I have a question regarding the care of the tools. How do you wash and preserve the paint brushes that you use for the gesso? Dish-soap and air-dry? Lastly, do you have videos on gilding techniques?
Hi Maria,
I use cheap synthetic brushes I buy at Michael's, and they last quite a few years. At the end of their life-cycle, I buy a new set. They do rust at the ferrule, nothing I can do about it. At the end of the gessoing session, I wash the brushes (and everything) with HOT water and dish soap, and just let everything dry. Hot water dissolves rabbit skin glue and all of it--glue, chalk--is washed away.
I don't have a video on water gilding technique. I wanted to make it for years, but I just don't have time. Besides, water-gilding has to be taught by a teacher who observes what the student does and suggests corrections. Any book, any video will tell you what to do, but they cannot correct your mistakes. Somebody knowledgeable has to watch what you are doing and make course corrections. It is difficult to do something like that with a video. I'd have to anticipate all possible mistakes that can happen. Gold leaf does not stick and flakes off? Possible causes: too little water, or is absorbed too quickly, or the gilder waited too long to apply gold leaf etc. Gold is covered with unpleasant yellow stains? Too much water, too much glue in the gilder's liquor, too hard of a push on the leaf, too this, too that... Variables are endless. Do you see my point?
Thank you for your answer. It is very helpful. I understand your point about gilding, it makes a lot of sense.
Hello, I am doing a creativity project for my college's humanities class and would really like to make an icon. Would this be considered correct for a Byzantine era icon? Also, is there a prayer schedule as you make the icon or is that only done after the craftsmanship? Thank you so much for the video!
Thank you very much. Your video is so professional and so informative.
Can I use a cradled birch panel or is that not as strong as the birch plywood? Also do you have to use isopropyl alcohol in the gesso?
I’d say yes - I have made a few boards with cradled 1/8 inch-thick MDF and hardboard, and it worked. As for alcohol in the gesso, it is entirely optional. In the winter, when the air is very dry, I a don’t add alcohol at all. Lastly, Birch plywood is no longer available (made in Russia, after all), so I switched to HPVA-good grade plywood.
this is an old video but WOW! the best one Ive viewed out of every video I could find in the past couple months! Thank YOU!!!
I see 7 ply birch and 7 ply oak for sale. Are these strong enough? I know you said 13 ply in your video. I’m a long time organist also.
Hi again Paul, I hope you are well. Once you have completed the icon, how do you prepare it so that it can be displayed on the wall?
Hi Robert, can you please email me at PaulStetsenko_at_gmail.com? I'd be happy to answer all your questions.
Thank you very much for the detailed and useful video!
One question: how do you ensure that water, the RSG and the gesso keep a constant temperature (eg. 37 or 60 celsius), how do you preserve them from overheating/too low temperature?
Hi Edit,
I use my secret weapon: a Salton Warming Tray! It is prominently featured in this video. See at 12:00.
It has a temperature dial. At the minimal setting, the temperature keeps the same level, and I can dial up when I need it hotter.
Check for this model on eBay - I bought mine for about $40 . Salton were at some point out of business but now there are new Salton Hotrays sold at Amazon. However, I don't know if they have temperature dials.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Thank you!
Aw man, you're gonna do the whole thing the HARD WAY?
Thank you for a very clear video on the steps necessary to complete a gesso board. I am the director of a website offering online classes for calligraphy and art, egg tempera although not in the traditions of icon painting. I would like to share this with the students. I know that you say it may be reposted and freely shared, but I wanted to check specifically before embedding it on a classroom website. If you would like to look at the website first, please just let me know and I will send it to you. Full credit given to you, of course. With thanks.
by all means, feel free to copy, post, repost, use on your website etc. etc. etc.
If I don't use Jorgensen's E-Z Hold clamps, will God smite me?
If I use a proper technique involving a push stick to cut my wood, and forgo the dangerous "shove the piece into the blade" technique you employed, will the Pope still like it?
If I cut the first board the correct length on the first cut, and not make two cut top and bottom to achieve the same length, will it affect the holiness of the icon?
If I use popular for the strips instead of 1/4" plywood (that you cut cross grained and not with the grain topside) that will certainly weaken faster, is the holy spirit going to shun my piece?
If I chamfer the edges of the frame using either a round-over bit on a router table or just use a #3 edge plane instead of gluing it down to the table so as to gouge out the painting surface with a chisel, does that lessen the authenticity of the icon?
I should stop there...
Absolutely! It will be totally unholy, demonic, and inauthentic :)
Jorgensen's clamps are trice-holy. St. Gregory Palamas speaks of them highly. Of some other Greek. (Zorba?)
Push-stick can be used, but it must be specially blessed by an elder from Mount Athos, for a special introductory price of $99. Otherwise remove the riving knife from the table saw and shove the hands into the blade like you do for a blessing.
The holiness of icon wholly depends on the evenness of the cut. You MUST cut the board on all four sides, 3 times. Then 12 times. Then 40.
(this one is serious though: I don't use 1/4" plywood for strips anymore; too much hassle. These days I rip a piece of pine into thin strips. It is much softer and water gilding looks better on it. I still don't do the routing, and the reason is that I can't get good poplar or ash here in the boondocks).
Well, I can go on and on. Being facetious and flippant is my MO.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Just be leary of the sap content of the pine, harder pines are wonderful, like Douglas Fur, but yellow paints and others softer ones can leach acids from the saps if not properly kiln dried (which 95% of all wood these days is not done to adequate standard) meaning it will warp as the sap content hardens. I completely understand about the boondocks, I am in GA and cannot get baltic birch anywhere down here, for this reason, I employ a lot of other woodworking tricks to elevate the durability of the crap I can buy! You pass the "good humor" test!
Chris, thanks! I am leary. Just waiting for the pockets of sap to open up and ooze the contents.
By the way, a few years back I ditched baltic birch ply. Lately, there wasn't a panel I got than didn't warp or delaminated. There are a few I still have; they all look like a potato chip. (And taste similarly too). There has been a marked decrease in quality as in anything made in Russia be it plywood or ballet dancers. Finnish-made is $$$$ but the quality is good. For icon boards, I switched to HPVA plywood, birch veneer. Over a hundred icon boards made, not a single one warped, cracked, or became dissolute.
I couldn't find this question in the comments, so apologies if it has been asked, but what is that wooden tool you use to hold the board in place as you cut through on the table saw? I've cut several boards with our table saw but it is difficult to keep them properly in place even with holding tools.
I would also love to know where you source your wood. It's been difficult for me to find a good wood source with the quality I'm looking for, mostly baltic birch plywood Grade A or B/BB
Kim, that thing is called "table saw sled" or sometimes "cross-cut sled". They are easy to construct (which I did), and general designs are easily available on the internet. You can also buy one, ready made.
Procuring wood is difficult nowadays. Baltic birch plywood, which I had used for ages, is now of such bad quality that I had to switch to HPVA plywood (birch or maple veneer) sold at Loew's and HomeDepot. Getting real wood suitable for gessoed boards is next to impossible, at least not where I am at now.
Thanks that’s helpful!
Amazing thank you so much for all useful information and care that We feel in your work….
Just want to know which alcohol you used?
Thank you once again
Hi Paola,
Any isopropyl alcohol will do, 60% or 90%, from the local pharmacy (here in the US it is called "rubbing alcohol"). The point of adding alcohol to the liquid gesso is to eliminate all the bubble that might form if gesso is overheated. Probably methyl alcohol should work just fine.
Would you believe, after all.these years, I really thought the borders that almost form a frame were CARVED out!!
Roberta, if an icon board with "kovcheg" is made out of wood, then yes, the inside part is carved out. These days, it is done with a router.
However, plywood is not good for that sort of carving; at some depth, one would just hit the glue/epoxy layer and there is no point of trying to do anything after that.
The idea came to me when I saw a Cretan 18-c. icon in a museum. Over the centuries, the glued strips got unglued--not excessively so, but one could see the cracked seams. This gave me an idea to try this on my plywood boards. Plywood offers something that natural wood boards do not: plywood boards are stable and will not warp.
Thanks for this video... so-- no dry sanding at all? Whenever I'm finished with my last wet sand, some sponge/towel
"stroke" marks still remain and my board isn't perfectly smooth- a final dry sand seems to be required...Am I doing something wrong? How perfectly smooth is your finished board? Thank you again---
No, I don't do any dry sanding. The foam sanding block suffices. But we all have different hands and different touches, so if you need to give it a light dry sanding, go for it. My boards are quite "perfect", to the point of being like porcelain, which is not always good. There has to be some tooth, even very fine tooth for the paint to grab onto.
Got it. maybe my sanding sponge is too course... Is there a specific sanding block you like to use/recommend? Again - thanks @@paulstetsenko5721
When you say chalk, could you be more specific? Is there a certain type or brand you recommend?
Father Mark,
Any good chalk will do - that is, used as "whiting" in gilding or gessoing. I used to buy chalk from Kremer Pigments, and their chalk is really good - be it chalk from Champagne, Bologna, or Belgium. As long as it is calcium carbonate, it will work (NOT calcium sulfate!!) One drawback: chalk is not expensive, but shipping it is.
Since most art stores do not carry chalk, many settle for an alternative in the form of marble dust, and it works for them. It is a form of calcium carbonate, but in my experiments with it I found it to be less absorbent than chalk. As the result, egg tempera tends to dry very slowly which may result in "lifts". Another drawback is that marble dust is much harder than chalk; if you water-gild and then burnish, such tough gesso may scratch your agate burnisher.
A few years back I tired paying high fees for shipping chalk, and the kind people from Rinaldin gave me a great suggestion to look for an alternative in the form of ground limestone, food grade. I found it on Amazon, at a fraction of the price of chalk, and worked with it ever since. However, I first recommend to try a natural chalk since it is more "historic" than ground limestone, just to get to know the material. And after that, try alternatives.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I love this video! I wanted to learn about icon making but I was broke so I had to use the strangest ingredients, ones I had on hand... slaked plaster, supplemental collagen, found wood boards, embroidery linen, etc. It was a learning experience but I wish I could have seen this video. It would have saved me a lot of trial and error! Thank you!
Can one just use acrylic white gesso?
One can do anything he or she wants.
Hello, I would like to ask please, for painting with egg tempera on unprimed masonite is better to attach or (stick) canvas? I appreciate an answer. Thank you very much.
No, you don't need to attach any fabric; just wipe the surface with alcohol, and apply gesso.
So just to be clear, if I'm painting on marine board (hard plywood, I suppose, that does have a grain, but is smooth) or any other grained wood, I WOULD want to do this technique, with the interlaggio, but if I'm using MDF or hardboard, I can simply gesso? I would like to do some of these using acrylic first, but would like to move to the egg tempera when I have a space to do it (I use acrylic daily for work and would have to move everything, same with oil).
Oh, most definitely you don't need the interlaggio for MDF or hardboard. Interlaggio is only needed to isolate wood grain from gesso so that it does not telegraph through. I painted a few icons on hardboard (braced in the back), and it is an excellent material. ONE THING THOUGH: before you gesso the hardboard, thoroughly wipe it with denatured alcohol. Hardboard's surface contains some residual oil which may cause the gesso to adhere poorly and eventually delaminate.
When bracing the hardboard, use 3/4 inch plywood, never pine planks. After a couple of years, pine turns into a twisted mess, and it takes the board with it.
@@paulstetsenko5721 wow, good to know! It's startling how many years I've painted on wood and didn't know this! Just did a cut out fish (marine board, 3/4"), and the collage and paper on it started coming off the wood in humidity during a show. I had to take the whole thing back down to wood. I will take this advice. Thank you!
Hello, can I coat with rabbit skin glue and gypsum directly on birch plywood and paint with egg tempera without linen, or muslin, or cloth, or other else? I am waiting for answering, thank you very much.
Hi Nidal,
You can certainly do it. Many iconographers of the past did so; I have seen old icons painted on such boards. The problem with skipping the cloth part is that such gesso is unstable and flakes off with time, in chunks.
this is very useful - also thank you for the good music, it soothed my soul. I recognize it as Das Orgelbuechlein, what version is this from?
You're welcome. May I ask what you mean by "what version"?
@@paulstetsenko5721 what rendition, who is playing it, where might I find this specific recording?
@@quicksanddixon6757 It's me playing. In my old days, I used to be a good organist (see my other videos), with all works of Bach under my belt. I recorded Das Orgelbuechlein on my home organ and self-produced a CD in some limited numbers, and sold it at concerts when I was still playing them. They went very quickly, so at this point all I have is digital files stored someplace on my computer.
@@paulstetsenko5721 an iconographer and an organist? very impressive! I found what I was looking for on your channel - ruclips.net/video/q8obIGz443I/видео.html
I love this! The sound of the organ at 1:06 is wonderful, thank you!
How do you make the raised border with material as this! Very good information 🙏😇
Morgan, could you please re-phrase your question? Did you mean, how to make a raised border with plywood using a router? Answer: you don't. If you start routing the inside part, you will hit the glue/epoxy that holds the layers together. Then, you'd be gessoing the epoxy layer instead of wood. Hence the method of gluing the strips of wood to create raised border. It is not a novelty; I have seen historic Cretan icons in museums and exhibits that clearly showed that the raised border was glued on rather than hollowed out. Of course, the reason I could see it because with time cracks and delamination occurred :)
@@paulstetsenko5721 it looks like this board on the movie is not in solid Wood?! Am I correct? And have you glued strips to get the border? Or is this board in massive Wood? 🙏
I had an accident in my hand and I did not have time to go through all the coats, I did 4, can I continue now? Please tell me how!thank you very much!
My apologies, I have a few boards where I failed to get the fabric tucked in the edges, and after drying I have some bubbles or gaps between the fabric and the long edges. How can I remedy this?
James, please rephrase the question - I barely understand what you mean.
@@paulstetsenko5721 sorry about that, I have a few boards where the fabric at some of the luzga areas (where board meets raised areas) that have bubbles and or dryed taught and left an empty recess. Should this be fixed?
@@jamesglover831 Yes, that is a problem. You can gesso it over, but those areas will always remain unstable. In my video, watch the trick at 10:40 to prevent that. Even if it has dried, you can still re-wet that area (use hot water), and incise it, and push it into the luzga so it stays put. Work some of 10% glue into it. It should be good after that.
Is there a video on the steps to making the icon after this? I was hoping to attend a class but I don’t think I can now do I really would like to try it at home.
Dear Megan, there is a gazillion of videos on how to paint an icon on RUclips, but none of those will help you. One can learn to make an icon board, or even to gild, but these are rather simple procedures. Learning to paint from videos is like learning to conduct by watching conductors. Most of it will be incomprehensible to you. Now, a good place to start is to go to one of the GOOD iconography workshops that work with beginners. Two of these stand out: the Dainekos (ikona-skiniya.com) and Hexaemeron. Go to any of these and they will give you a good start.
Sir, my wife picked up iconography and started painting using stencils from The School of Proposan, NY. She needs bigger boards ie 14x28 inches which are both expensive and very hard to find so I will try to make them myself. Question: Is there any literature / books I can buy that can be useful?
Mother Iuliania's "The Iconographer's Labor"
www.sacredmurals.com/texts/the_iconographers_labor.pdf
(I translated this work 6 years ago from Russian, free to download.)
Very little is offered in English of comparable value, but there are few books such as "Techniques of icon and wall painting" by Aidan Hart, a few other.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Brother, this is a great beginning. I'll take a look. Thanks!
@@paulstetsenko5721 I've read parts of the book and it's the best resource I've found in the topic of making gesso icon boards. Thanks again!
Very thorough, thank you.
Good day Sir! 🙂
Three questions for you:
Are you using plywood in lieu of splined boards, or, if I use a 3/4” thick birch plank will I have to spline the back?
Is 250 gram strength hide glue acceptable in place of the 500 gram strength rabbit skin glue?
Is plaster of paris considered chalk?
Hi Marcao,
1. Plywood's advantage over regular wood is that it does not warp. Birch panel will eventually warp, so you do need splines in the back. Suggestion: instead of splines in the back, see if you can do side splines. See the book "The Iconographer's Labor" by Mother Iuliania; you can find it online, in PDF.
2. I have never used hide glue. I heard it is very strong but also brittle. I have seen some contemporary icons made on boards with hide glue as a binder for gesso; they were all cracked. I would suggest making a few samples and adding plasticizer (linseed oil or glycerin) and experimenting with it.
3. By no means plaster of Paris is chalk. Chalk is calcium carbonate whereas plaster of Paris is semi-hydrated calcium sulfate; it will turn into solid matter once you mix it with water. Do not use it.
@@paulstetsenko5721
Thank you so much for your response! 🙂
I now have the rabbit skin glue and the chalk on order, and will get some plywood soon.
Thanks for the tip on side splines-I’ll look into that too.
Have a great day!
Marcao
Thank you for this video!
How much time does it take to finish this work?
Day 1: cut the board and size it with 5% glue, wait to dry overnight; Day 2: glue the interlaggio, wait overnight to dry; Day 3: gesso the board (this takes a few hours, depending on the size of the board, and humidity and temperature of the room), wait overnight to dry; Day 4: wet-sand the board. DONE.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Thank you!
Hello Mr Paul, thank you for your video, it is very useful, I have one question, how long can we keep the gesso and where?
Since gesso is made of rabbit skin glue, it will quickly spoil even in the fridge. Freezing it, however, kills the glue just as well. Here is what you can do:
Place your gesso into a shallow plastic container and put it in a fridge for a few hours; it turns into a rather solid tofu-like brick. Pry it out of the container. Take a piece of paper towel, spray it generously with Chloraseptic until paper towel is wet (Chloraseptic is sold in drug stores over the counter; it is a cold throat medicine which contains phenol, a strong antiseptic). You can cut up solid gesso into smaller cubes, or just take the whole block, and place it on the paper towel. Spray more Chloraseptic onto the brick, then wrap the wet paper towel around it. Put it into a plastic container with an air-tight lid, and store it in a fridge. Protected by the vapors of phenols, it will last indefinitely. When you need it, cut a portion of the stored gesso, melt it in a bein-marie, and it is ready to go. It might have some residual color from Chloraseptic -- and flavor too :) -- but not particularly detrimental.
@@paulstetsenko5721 thank you a lot for your time and your knowledge
Hello. An elementary question since I have just in the last couple of days been exposing myself to how icons are made.....I see after several videos the process of preparing the board for the painting is quite involved, but I was wondering if there is a more "modern" method for the preparation, or is it the fact that you are following a time honored tradition?
Thank You.
Hi Michael,
If you examine ancient icons in person, you will see that they were painted on wooden boards of various species, and all the components of the board are invariable, from country to country, from East to West, from age to age. The time honored tradition has one goal in mind: stability of the painting. Centuries of experimentation and experiences yielded this method, and deviation from it inevitably resulted in tempera paintings that fell apart only a few decades after completion (and sometimes even a few years). The tradition has been kept but also carefully enhanced with innovations. Such were, for instance, the side splines invented in the 18th century, which prevent the board's bending, something that the traditional back splines do only partially.
Using plywood instead of cut boards is another innovation; it is also far more affordable and accessible these days, and especially in the US. As for plywood's longevity, this remains to be yet seen. We will know in about 100 years or so. :)
If a painter works in egg tempera, he or she must use a sturdy support; canvass will not work for this medium. The support is covered with true gesso, and this is the best material for egg tempera to be painted upon. Of course, if one chooses to work in acrylic (which is a sort of modern tempera with some added benefits yet with egg tempera's luminescence taken away), all of it is additionally simplified as any surface can be covered with acrylic gesso and painted over with acrylic paints.
These days, many temperists choose to paint on tempered hadboards or MDF. Gesso sticks to them marvelously, and they do not require gluing on the interlaggio, as there is no wood grain. I painted several icons on tempered hardboard, and I have yet to see problems developing.
Another excellent alternative to wood is Artefex aluminum panels made by Natural Pigments, the art materials company in California, run by George O'Hanlon and his wife Tatyana Zaitseva - two most remarkable people one could ever meet. They know EVERYTHING when it comes to art materials, and this statement is not an exaggeration. (I also have a nagging suspicion that George knows EVERYTHING, period.)
Excellent comment. I failed to ask previously, about the boards that were attached to the back on some demonstrations, thinking they were for some type of hanging method, but you say they are for added rigidity. As well as the side pieces you referred to.
I will continue my reading.
Thanks Very Much.
Michael,
Those splines serve several purposes. Made of a harder wood, they may prevent the board from natural warping. Also, these splines may also be part of joinery. The large icon boards (and some of Greek and Russian icons are HUGE) were assembled from several planks, which were rift hewn; complicated joinery was used to keep those planks together. Such boards never warped because of the way they were cut. However, other boards were made from planks that were rip cut and planed. These, of course, were prone to warping; the back splines became common somewhere around the late 14th century. In the 15th-16th centuries, splines were inserted in to the back side of the icon, and they protruded high above the surface; smaller icons would have only one spline. This all changed in the 17th century, when splines were made flush with the surface. They were also made of oak with more elaborate shapes. In the late 17th century, splines were inserted into the sides of the icon instead of the back.
If interested, there is a classic work on the topic of how icons are made, by Mother Iuliania (Sokolova), "The Iconographer's Labor". Yours truly translated it from Russian a while ago. You can download it here:
www.american-iconography.info/downloads/Mother%20Iuliania/The%20Iconographer%27s%20Labor.pdf
I have started reading. Thanks. Very illuminating.
Thank so much for share your knowlege.
Which is the music of 19:27? I just know it is Bach.
Chorale prelude "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" ("The old year has passed away") from Das Orgelbuechlein.
"The whole purpose of interlaggio is to isolate the woodgrain from the painting. Without the interlaggio, wood grain will begin showing through the gesso only after a few years."
This is a half truth, and due to the nature of the prep for the panel to begin with. No seal on the wood allows the wood grains to move, furthermore, the nature of the rabbit skin glue encourages the wood grain to open up as it ages. For this reason, I have moved from rabbit skin glue to a non-organic glue, something not available to artist of the 15-16th century... or anyone before 80 year ago. The main cause of deterioration in paneled works is for the deterioration of the wood, stop that, and most topical problems are avoided. Wood worker employ denatured alcohol to "raise the grain" which allows them to preemptively exaggerate this effect, and then if you seal the wood then sand it, the raised grain effect is greatly reduced before you get to rabbit skin glue layers. Glycerin is a vegetable oil, which will lend itself to rot, or contribute to mold growth in the piece later if the moisture is high, go with linseed oil or something else less organic. Ironic how you mention that in the 15th century they used pumice stone, but today we benefit from "modern" sanding sponges! This literally is the lowest form of upgrade you could have gone with from modern materials, and is probably the worst one to have chosen! Wet sanding this surface will not yield the result you may think it does, unless you reanimated (through heating) the surface and allow the chalk to be reabsorbed into the surface, the wet chalk will form a paste of its own, and be less structural, and less cohesive than the rest of the base gesso you spent so long to achieve, while to the touch this seems like its unified, it is an illusion. Chalk, gypsum, talcum, marble dust, all have varying cohesion properties when worked into a water based paste. Floating this layer atop the rabbit skin glue binder without reheating the glue will weaken the top layer for the adhesion of the oil. Removal of this pasty layer and sanding down to a smooth finish is the better solution. For this reason, I use a dry technique, because the only advantage of using wet sanding is to prevent gumming of the sand paper... and has no other benefit in any circumstance. You would never wet sand a car's surface and leave the dust to dry on the hood, then paint over it! The dust is actually taking up some of the porous nature of the surface and thereby lessoning the natural adhesive properties of the gesso, yet another reason to dry sand, and vacuum the dust out, vacuum, there is another modern advantage we have!
That's one way to look at it. I just recently had to deal with a capricious panel with woodgrain opening up without ceasing. So I sealed it with diluted wood glue. It seemed to stop the problem. I have no idea what the long-term prospective is. It might delaminate in the future, who knows... But plywood might delaminate in any case in about 50 years. We just don't know yet.
I used linseed oil a few years back; I didn't dislike it. It did not disperse quite the way I wanted, and tiny droplets remained in the gesso, quite visible. Somebody in gilding circles suggested glycerin; I tried and liked how gesso felt, and decided to stick with it.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I can recommend a solution of no more than 15% water to wood glue, more than that, and you are undermining the wood glue's effectiveness. When applying directly to wood, I go with straight up wood glue. PVA Glue is stronger than the wood itself, and the bonds will outlast the lignin of the wood fibers, so impregnating the outer shell of the wood will no doubt prevent a huge amount of aging right from the start. I have gone so far as to use PVA glue to make my gesso as well. This does mean that it is non-removable in the future, but also prevents many destructive things that occur due to it's rigid hold over the panel. If all else fails, the conservator can remove the panel entirely, and keep the last layer of gesso, replacing everything from the paint back, if its worth doing at all!
Thank you Paul!
I do not want to glue fabric, how will I prim the wood, with 10% glue or with 20%?Thank you very much. I wish you be well!
Years ago, I decided that gluing fabric to the board was too much work. So I primed the board with a 5% glue, and applied gesso directly to the wood without fabric. Upon drying, gesso cracked. Wood (even plywood) expanded while wet, contracted upon drying and cracked the gesso.
The only material you can gesso without gluing fabric is MDF board. I used them, it is an excellent material.
@@paulstetsenko5721 I have MDF! so that I can put a 5% pass, then make a 10% solution with chalk, right? Thank you so much, I am waiting for an answer, thank you!
@@Dive5344 Here is what to do:
First, rub the surface of the MDF board with alcohol. It will remove any oily residue left from production.
Second step: prepare a generous amount of a 5% rabbit skin glue solution, and size the board 2-3 times, waiting for each coat to dry fully. After that, make your gesso the way you usually make it and begin gessoing the panel. Recipes for gesso vary greatly. I use 10% RSG, the amount of chalk twice that of RSG solution (that is, 1 cup of 10% RSG solution to 2 cups of chalk by volume). Other recipes also exists; Marty Horowitz, for instance, recommends one cup of 8.45% gelatin solution for 1.5 cups of chalk by volume. Do what works for you.
@@paulstetsenko5721 Thank you very much!
Hello,
What's the temperature of glue, when I'm adding chalk? Around 60 °C or more like lukewarm? Thank you for your help :)
Olga, I never measured it, but it has to be quite warm - but definitely not hot. If it is lukewarm, it is safe enough but then it might take forever for the glue to infuse the whiting. Here is a suggestion: if you can comfortably hold the container in your hands, then the temperature is just right. However, if it is "ouch! that's hot..." then it is too hot. Here is another thought: adding chalk to the glue solution is like adding yeast to warm water when making leavened dough - the same principle.
Next time I make a board (which will be in a few days, likely), I will measure the temperature of the gesso solution and let you know. Generally speaking, gesso should not be too warm; otherwise, water evaporates like crazy and you have to add it to the solution all the time. Hassle...
Paul, thank you sooo much! You are such a great person! My first gesso is all with bubbles (I made it before watching your movie), but I definitely overheat it. I'm waiting for your message :)
@@1114Olga There is a solution for accidental overheating of gesso. It is @15:25. In a nutshell: if you accidentally overheated the gesso, cool it down to a lukewarm temperature, and add a squirt of alcohol, and immediately mix it around. The bubble will quickly disappear. Alcohol does not change the nature of gesso as it evaporates (just as water does). The only proportion that is of importance is the proportion between chalk and glue.
It's too late already (I was making board before watching this movie) but I noticed your tip :D thanks anyway!
@@1114Olga, I just measured the temperature of my gesso. It was 42°C (108°F). It can be cooler or warmer though. Here is a good way to determine the right temperature: stick your hand into the hot water in the bein-marie, and it should be hot, but you should be able to hold your hand in that hot water for a long time without saying "ouch!"
Thank you for the tutorial. very helpfull.
PLEASE! What is the song at 22:09??
In dir ist Freude - appropriate for Christmas, actually. All pieces are from the same collection Bach's Das Orgelbuchlein, and most of the cycle is organized around the church year. This chorale prelude is on a Christmas song
@@paulstetsenko5721 Thank you so much, sir! Merry Christmas, and God bless!
Helpful, thx. (But, that organ music ...)
what about that organ music? :)
Excellent and very informative. However, just one thing: the RSG is not 20%. It is 20 in 120, not 20 in 100, there fore it is around 17%.
Probably... You might be right. I sat deer-in-the-headlights all through math classes in school. When I add 2 and 2, I get 22.
That being so, these proportions come from many sources on gessoing and water-gilding. One day, a few years back, I decided to line up all the recipes and proportions from many sources. The variations between the proportions varied wildly. The margin between the numbers far exceeded the discrepancy between 20% and 17%. I was very surprised at those variations. Yet, all of them came from legitimate historical sources, and all of them workable. This tells me that the materials involved allow for a very wide margin.
@@paulstetsenko5721 - I've looked for recipes for things in the past like tempera paint and so on and there are many of them. Things like chalk particle size - therefore surface area to mass ratio - are probably a big player. It is what works that matters. for instance, with gilding, I find that a gilder's tip works best with real gold leaf (grease fromone's hair) but not very well with schlag metal but a synthetic tip works best with that (static electricity). Keep up the good work.
@@paulgrosse7631 yep!
What synthetic tip do you use for schlag leaf? A synthetic tip for schlag leaf didn't work for me; the leaf does not stick to it, or just barely and falls off at the first opportunity. A piece of acetate worked a bit better but not 100% percent.
@@paulstetsenko5721 A Kilner Gilders Tip 3.5" (1935 - 3.5"). It has a black body and orange coloured hairs which, compared to squirrel, are quite coarse. I found this tip a bit brutal for gold leaf but schlag, cut into two so that it was about the same size as the width of the tip, worked out just right.
I brush it against my hair (on my head, what is left of it) and the static seems to hold it in place. I find that I can pick up a piece (maybe 3.5" ish by 2") and then feed it onto the area that I'm working on, just about end on (maybe hold it at an angle of about 70 degrees relative to the work) so that the end is placed fairly accurately and then, move the tip along so that it slides down the tip, onto the work. In that way, I can get it to lie in concave parts of frames without too much bridging.
@@paulgrosse7631 Can you connect with me on FaceBook? (facebook.com/paul.stetsenko) Exchange of info would be useful for both of us. I can do water gilding no problem, but I am getting tired of it and am looking for variety, and schlag leaf (brass, aluminum) offers interesting possibilities.
Thanks for the video! Why not calcium sulphate?
Using calcium sulphate may result in something the Russian icon-makers refer to as "bubbling gesso" or "boiling gesso" (левкас кипит or левкас закипел). Lots of air-bubbles, pinholes, and ultimately excessive absorption of RSG by the material; the latter may result in weaker adhesion of the gesso layer to the board, and eventually delamination. However, I also believe that these artifacts are not the result of calcium sulphate itself but instead caused by some impurities and inclusions. For instance, chalk from Bologna is a mixture of calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate. I used it a few times, and I had no problems. I did notice a rather excessive amount of air-bubbles during preparation, and also more matte surface of the finished gesso which points to the chalk absorbing RSG more agressively than a purer calcium carbonate. Also, while painting I noticed pinholes forming in the egg tempera's first layer (they disappear under the subsequent coats and glazings, but still... Perhaps, it would be advisable to seal such gesso with a thicker coat of egg emulsion.)
@@paulstetsenko5721 thank you very much for your reply. I used calcium carbonate once, and a lot of bubbles formed, but it was probably because I used a very high temperature. Another question: when you separate glue for the gilding, then to this rsg solution add alcohol, or water?Thanks again for your detailed answers!
@@valeriacorvalan6624 , when I take a small part of RSG from the bigger batch to do water-gilding later, I don't add anything to it, because it is already 10% solution of RSG in water. Of course, when I prepare the bole solution, I do add water (1 part clay, 2 parts RSG, 3 parts water), but that is entirely different process. Let's not mix the two :)
@@valeriacorvalan6624 If you find that you overheated the liquid gesso and millions of air bubbles have formed, just add some alcohol to it. Alcohol decreases the surface tension and all those bubbles will burst. Alcohol does not affect properties of gesso because it evaporates eventually.
@@paulstetsenko5721 thanks you very much!!
what music is played at 9:11 ?
That one is prelude on chorale "Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar" ("From Heaven came a flock of angels"). All those organ pieces are the complete set of Bach's Das Orgelbuechlein, from start to finish.
Thz a lot
What kind of chalk and glue do you mean this is not a food recipe you know !!!
Glue: rabbit skin glue
Chalk: chalk from Champagne, Bologna, or Belgium. Any calcium carbonate will do.
Or save a
Lot of time and paint an icon on a kitchen unit door!!!!😩
Our Orthodox tradition preserved the account of the Holy Apostle Luke taking a simple table top and painting the first image of the Theotokos on it. If a lowly table top was good enough for the Apostle, why should we place ourselves above him and seek some exalted materials for much less spiritual output, pigmies as we are? I will gladly paint on a kitchen unit door - or anything for that matter - when I see that I cannot get quality supports.
Paul Stetsenko fair enough?????!!! Lol... just a hell of a lot of stages for a smooth surface, but I do respect your hard work and tradition 👍
My other preference is MDF, (treated, or whatever it is called....). Just a backing frame in the back, and it does not warp at all. And no interlaggio is needed. Gessoing is a peace of cake. But I still somehow prefer wood...