Page:Cyclopedia of Painting-Armstrong, George D (1908).djvu/264

256 peel from the ground, while with too little it is friable and deficient of strength. In some cases glue may be abated, or altogether dispensed with, by employing plaster of paris sufficiently diluted and worked into the colors, by which they will acquire the consistency and appearance of oil painting, without employing their limpidness or allowing the colors to separate, while they will acquire a good surface, and keep their place in the dry with the strength of fresco, and without being liable to mildew, to which animal glue is disposed, and to which milk, and other vehicles recommended in this mode, are also subject.

There can be no doubt that distempering has its manifold advantages, and that when well done it possesses a degree of clearness and brightness, especially in white, pink, blue and lilac, which is not attainable in oil colors, owing to the admixture of the various oils, and to the changes likely to occur in them subsequent to the application of the colors.

A fruitful cause of failure in distemper work is the neglect of proper precaution in preparing the surfaces to be colored, the great point at starting, assuming that the wall has been well smoothed, or if necessary scraped, in order that the surface may present no roughness or inequalities whatever. The first stage is but seldom attended to by painters, who assume that the plasterer, as a matter of course, leaves the wall properly finished, but this must not always be taken for granted. At all events even if the work has been carried as far as it is the plasterer's duty to take it, there is no reason why the next stage should not be considered to belong to the painter, who is so well aware of the conditions on which a good result to his work depends.

The process consists in this, the plasterers having left the walls, the painters take them in hand. With a bucket of water, a sponge, a rag, and a slab of wood, 6 inches broad and 7 or 8 inches long, on the back of which a handle made of leather is placed, and it must be mentioned that