Strange Brew

 I cooked some more varnish.  I wasn't going to do it until springtime, but the fall weather has been wonderful and Illyas Pagonis wandered into my life.  Illyas has a background in curating, art history and painting.  He also makes bazoukis and violins.  Lately he's been experimenting with various historic varnish recipes and ingredients.  I got caught up in the excitement and decided to make some varnish of my own.  I changed my method somewhat, and used a thermometer which gave me greater control over the cooking temperature.  The result appears to be very acceptable and it's always a bonus when nothing catches fire in the process.  It's also a bonus when the neighbours are blissfully unaware of the smell of linseed oil smoking away at 500+ F temperatures for several hours.

I also made a madder lake for the first time.  It reminds me of the wine making process, except you use caustic ingredients and ground up roots, and what you throw away in wine making, you keep for making the madder lake.  It took about a week to dry the sediment and the result is a pigment that  closely resembles Transparent Red Oxide, which is a colour I use a lot in my work.  It wasn't the colour I was trying for, but it's a colour I can work with.  I look forward to the clarity that a madder lake pigment provides.  It should pair nicely with my latest handcrafted varnish but I will have to wait until varnish season next spring to find out.