Various options
Anyone who wants to paint on parchment has to make a number of considerations. Am I going to stretch the parchment or not, am I going to apply a ground to it as was done in the Middle Ages or not?
About the first, stretching or gluing parchment, I want to share in this post some experiences that may help. Of course, I am never completely , these are my experiences and someone else’s can also be very valuable.
First, clear up a misunderstanding. Stretching or gluing vellum is not medieval because people simply painted on the sheets of vellum of the quires whether or not on an applied ground. But I see in various handbooks that it is recommended and frankly, it does come in handy especially if you haven’t built up much experience.
Different methods
Stick parchment onto a piece of cardboard
You can do this with a small piece of parchment very well with a piece of adhesive tape. For my workshops, I usually use a sheet of parchment no bigger than 15 x 10 cm and it works fine.
Parchment glued to a piece of cardboard
The image above shows a piece of parchment glued to a piece of museum board. You can glue the parchment with bookbinder’s glue PVA, mix or starch. Don’t make it too wet, smooth it well and dry it under a stack of books or press boards.
Make sure the piece of cardboard is a bit larger and stick a piece of kraft paper on the back to be sure. This will prevent the cardboard from bulging. Here too, we should not use too large pieces of parchment because the parchment works hugely and then it will still warp.
Besides cardboard, you can of course also use MDF board on which you glue the parchment, but I find that less convenient when framing. It is rather thick and you really need a picture frame in which you can frame it. But if you opt for this, then you have a very flat surface to work on. The disadvantage of this again is the ‘unnatural look’ of the parchment. As in a manuscript, the parchment should bulge in the frame a little, but that’s my opinion(!)
Stretching parchment without glue on a board and removing it after painting
For my advanced course in medieval illumination we use a sheet of parchment stretched on a board of MDF. We paint a beautiful scene on it in five Saturdays based on an example from John of Bedford’s Book of Hours. When we finish, we carefully cut the sheet loose and can frame it using a passe-partout if desired.
This method has the advantage that you can work on a tight, even surface but also that when it is framed, you regain the slight bulge of parchment. Personally, I find this method preferable to the methods mentioned above. Here, you can also make large workpieces as long as you have a thick enough MDF board. Use 16 mm. thick MDF for this and it works fine.
Below I will show you how it works.
This way is quite laborious but step by step it should definitely work. First we cut the pieces of parchment to size. Take the size of the boards and mark it on the back (fleshside) of the entire skin. Draw a margin around the boards as wide as the thickness of the MDF board. We will need this extra piece for folding and attaching the parchment.
In the case of a whole skin, it is easy to first spread the different boards across the skin as economically as possible. Pay close attention to the differences in the thickness of the skin! I always paint on the hair side of the skin. It is then handy to indicate which side this is by a pencil mark. When the whole skin is wet, you can hardly see which is the hair or flesh side.
Draw a line around the boards with pencil and then the line for the margin. After this, cut everything to size. We can still make good use of the leftover parchment for making experiments and for the enthusiasts for making parchment glue.
The sheets now go into a bath of lukewarm water to be completely saturated with water and that takes time, at least a couple of hours. Beforehand, I also trimmed the corners to avoid getting an ugly fold at the corners of the boards when folding the parchment.
The left sheet is better saturated this can be seen by its more homogeneous and darker colour than the right sheet. For soaking the parchment, take your time and it depends on the thickness of the parchment. The sheet should become completely uniform in colour.
On the board, we first applied a white sheet of drawing paper. This ensures that the parchment is not contaminated with dissolved substances from the MDF board. It is important to make the size of the paper half a centimetre smaller than that of the board, as the paper expands slightly. Next, we carefully apply the parchment.
Carefully lay the wet parchment on the also wet drawing paper. Take the corners as a starting point. It is quite tricky so some practice is needed.
Smooth the surface as much as you can and apply the sheet to the board as best you can.
Important issue is that you have enough parchment left to fold it over but it should also not be too much.
We start on one side from the centre by securing the parchment with drawing pins.
Now work on the opposite side, pulling the parchment firmly each time and then securing it with a drawing pin, always working from the centre.
Secure the drawing pins securely possibly with a little hammer, there will be quite a bit of tension on the sheet.
Now leave to dry slowly. It can take a few days for the skin to dry properly, of course this depends on the humidity in the room where they are left to dry.
After drying, we have a fine surface to work on which moisture hardly affects it. You can paint well on it and work very precisely without bumps and lumps.
When the painted piece is ready, we carefully cut it loose.
The work can
The painting can now be mounted in a passe-partout and framed. In my experience, the parchment stays well in the frame with a slight bulge here and there. This gives it a natural look.
We loosen the edge of the parchment with the drawing pins and can use the board again.
Next time, more about a tool for doing regular medieval painting, on vellum without gluing or stretching.
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