Last weekend in the Historic Open Air Museum Eindhoven we started to decorate the large horizontal beam of our pole lathe (which bears the name of our guild) with medieval paint. We chose the colours of Nimweghen (black and red) for the letters and background, surrounded by a green "frame". Actually we only succeeded in painting the red and black parts, but the result is already great. We sure have an eyecatcher now.
Journeyman Bram is painting his pole lathe
Our egg tempera paint was made using the guidelines of Cennino DÁndrea Cennini in his 15th century book Il libro dell' Arte. In short, egg yolk was rolled dry in the hands, the yolk sac opened with a sharp knife and the fresh yolks mixed with pigments which were ground with a bit of water to form a paste. Bone black was used as black and Venetian red for red, (Jeroen) 'Bosch' green for green pigment. All pigments were obtained from paint-mill 'de Kat'.
Nearly finished, the blank wood will later be painted green.
It was nice meeting you guys. :)
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