Page 286 - The Grotesque Children's Book

SIDEBAR. The preparing of plaster and pigment. From the Guild
Manual for Plasterers, prepared by the cheery and exuberant Master Craftsman
Giovanni Leccare of Genoa. Submitted, may it please the Court, by Pandolfo
Pelece, Barrister, as supplement to the case before it.

1. Prepare the coat of plaster with one part bianco sangiovanni (white
lime) with one part lime and two parts sand.

2. Run the sand through a screen to cleanse it of its impurities.

3. Wash the sand by stirring it in a barrel. Small quantities may be stirred
in a pail with water, but for ceilings you will find the barrel most necessary. Pour
the water off, then stir afresh again with new water, then pour off and cleanse
again until the water should run clear.

4. Then the sand must be dried before it is ready for the mixing with the
lime.

5. The plaster must be frothed with the least amount of water. Yes, fellow
stirrers, its thickened state will require the greatest possible urging, but too much
water in an attempt to ease your burden and the surface will be weak and reject
your pigments; in addition to which, overly-wet plastering will dry so slowly
there will be little hours left of light at day’s end in which to paint.

6. Slather up your hawk with plaster and hold in the one hand while
troweling onto the ceiling with the other. Trowel onto the ceiling only that which
you will work for the day, else the plaster will dry and not take in the pigments,
but fall away in flecks.

7. Let it settle a few moments, then take up your scourer and rub the
surface to smoothness, adding plaster wherever necessary for evenness. Quickly
now, my friends, for the moment for smoothing is short and must be done swiftly
with the point.

8. Then shall you wet the ceiling with a final moist squirrel that which you
have troweled, scouring the ceiling upon which you will be working. Squirrel the
final troweling now into a smooth but moist surface. This surface now must be
allowed to dry some, for a wet patch cannot be painted upon for hours.

9. For the grinding of the tinctures, take up your plaque and put a small
quantity of your color upon it, and with a glass muller grind the color until it be
the consistency of chewy saliva. Work the muller round and round the plaque,
drawing the tincture from the edges back in towards the center. Gather up the

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