Stretching Parchment for Painting

[altoonsultan]

I'm a painter who has worked for a long time with egg tempera on panel. Just recently, inspired by the Hours of Catherine of Cleves exhibit at the Morgan Library, I decided to try a miniature painting on parchment, using glaire, which I made myself. I am totally thrilled with the medium and love working on a miniature size (the two paintings I've completed are 4 x 3.5 inches and can be seen at my blog: http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com/.

My only concern is that the parchment got wavy and one piece even curled from the moisture of the paint. Should I be stretching the parchment before painting, as you would do with watercolor paper? would that leave a border where it was taped, that would look different from the rest? or should I perhaps stretch the parchment over a piece of plywood? I believe the painting would be sturdy enough to survive without being framed under glass.

thanks for any suggestions!

[altoonsultan]

ok, now I'm going to reply to my own post: I just stretched a piece of Pergamena calfskin vellum, over a plywood panel and it came out beautifully. You can see pictures of the process at http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-vellum-panel.html

[stephen]

Altoon, the plywood was a great idea. Being parchment makers, we know how the skin behaves under certain conditions, and how best to prepare for others. However, not having experimented with it as a media for painting, etching, and other more particular arts than drawing and printing, we can only really offer suggestions as to how to best use our parchment. So, we appreciate experimentation and the sharing of any knowledge gained from it.

From your pictures, it almost seems like you were just intending to make a parchment panel, which we do have experience with. You mention that some of the plywood corners showed through because of how you cut the parchment. For your next painting, I would suggest, without cutting the vellum, re-wet the sheet, stretch it over the plywood, and pull it tight around the back of the panel by stapling the edges to the wood. With this method, you can get the corners to be a solid, seamless piece of skin and then just trim the excess off of the back. Any questions about this method of application, let me know, and I'll try to be more explicit.

Hope your first painting turns out beautifully.

[altoonsultan]

thanks for the reply Stephen; I'll let you know when I've got a painting done on the panel. As for your suggestion of not cutting the corners before stretching the parchment over the panel, wouldn't you then have to fold the corners in a kind of "hospital corner" way? I used to do that with canvas stretching, but was hoping to avoid the extra thickness on these very small panels.

[stephen]

The great thing about parchment is that it stretches. Around corners, all you have to do is pull and secure the skin tight, and it will stretch, without folds, around the whole thing. As long as the skin is damp enough, you don't have to worry about pulling too hard or ripping the skin.

[altoonsultan]

Wow. Thank you, Stephen; I'll do that next time.