The text discusses methods for enhancing light areas in drawings on tinted paper using various pigments like Spanish white and white lead. It explains why painters mix bistre with Chinese ink to create softer tones and outlines techniques for ensuring the blackstone used in drawings adheres well to the paper. The methods aim to create a softer appearance and ensure durability of the artwork.
Method for Learning
If you wash on tinted paper, you can enhance the whiteness in the parts that should be most illuminated using a brush; typically, you lay down the white by hatching with the tip of a fine and delicate brush. This white is nothing other than chalk or Spanish white mixed with gum water, and a bit of white lead is added to give it more body. One should not use pure white lead because it blackens quickly, even if enclosed in a folder or under glass.
Most painters do not use pure Chinese ink to wash their drawings; as it is a blackish-blue, they find it too harsh on the eyes. However, they mix at least half with bistre, which is, as we have said, a dye derived from chimney soot, left in water for some time over moderate heat, and filtered through cloth: this dye-enriched water becomes more colored as it is reduced in volume. Regarding the brownest shades, they use pure bistre, when it has thickened slightly while drying, which gives their works a much softer appearance.
There are painters who, after completing their drawings on white paper with blackstone by hatching the shadows, go over the hatchings with a brush moistened with clear water, smoothing the areas that require it, using a clean and slightly damp brush; this makes the work softer, and at the same time makes the blackstone adhere to the paper so that it cannot easily be erased. If it is on colored paper, they enhance...
Translation Notes:
Bistre: A brown pigment produced from soot.
Spanish White: Also known as chalk or whiting, used as a pigment.
Chinese Ink: Traditionally a black ink made from soot and animal glue.