CVI. To render the stone-cinnabar and vermilion finer; and, at the same time, to present them from blackening.

Valuable Secrets concerning Arts and Trades:
or Approved Directions, from the best Artists, for the Various Methods...
Printed by Thomas Hubbard,
Norwich, 1795Chap. V. Secrets concerning colours & painting.

§ VIII. Preparations of colours of all sorts for oil, water, and crayons.


1. You raise the hue of the stone-vermilion, if, in grinding it, you add gamboge water s tinged with a little saffron. This preparation extends only to the red.

2. With respect to the orange colour you must add same minium to it.

3. For the yellow, put a discretionable quantity, of orpine in cakes, prepared as follows. Take the finest orpine you can find, and grind it well with water. Make it in little cakes, and set it to dry on paper, as you do with every other sort of colour. When dry, pulverise and use it.

4. For the gridelin, take French sorrel and boil it by itself in water, to draw as strong a tincture from it as you possibly can. Then have white lead, (dried in cakes, and prepared after the method above mentioned for the orpine), and grind it a-new with this sorrel tincture, then dry it. Grind and dry it again, and repeat this operation with the sorrel tincture, till you have obtained the desired point of colour.