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+--- Thread: Oil paint on linen (/showthread.php?tid=31390)
Oil paint on linen - Dan D'Silva - 01-17-2021
Hello again,
I'm slowly moving toward finishing my mini-La Tene shield and have decided to face it with linen instead of leather or rawhide. I'd like to paint it with linseed oil and ochre so it'll be water-resistant, but I've recently read that linseed oil can degrade plant fibers like flax and cotton, which is why painting canvases are sized with glue to prevent the fibers from absorbing oil. Do you think this is likely to be a problem for a shield facing? If so, is there any period-appropriate substance other than animal glue that can be used as a sizing?
RE: Oil paint on linen - Dan Howard - 01-17-2021
Shields were meant to be used in battle. The facing will need repair after every battle and it was further damaged in the field by wear, mud, water, and blood, so it didn't really matter whether linseed oil degraded the fibres. If you want to use the shield for a non-period purpose (e.g. keeping it on display for an extended period of time) then you may need non-period materials.
RE: Oil paint on linen - Dan D'Silva - 01-17-2021
Point taken, but I'm neither in a position to attend reenactment events where I might use a shield more often than every few years, nor repair it if it's heavily damaged when it is used. So I would prefer not to find when I do have the opportunity to take it out that the facing is disintegrating, which would necessitate an almost total rebuild.
If there is no period-appropriate solution, then I might size it with waterproof wood glue.
RE: Oil paint on linen - Crispianus - 01-18-2021
(01-17-2021, 04:39 PM)Dan D\Silva Wrote: Point taken, but I'm neither in a position to attend reenactment events where I might use a shield more often than every few years, nor repair it if it's heavily damaged when it is used. So I would prefer not to find when I do have the opportunity to take it out that the facing is disintegrating, which would necessitate an almost total rebuild.
If there is no period-appropriate solution, then I might size it with waterproof wood glue.
Mostly the Roman Dura oval shields were primed with gesso directly on the wood, the rectangular shield is encaustic wax applied to skin, I think I might be right in saying that the persian gilded wooden scabbards were also prepared with gesso... the only painted shields I've actually seen in the flesh were from Illerup and painted directly on the wood.
Anyway I doubt it would be a problem canvasses have to survive for a long time I expect its not likely to fall apart very quickly if you use linseed oil direct...
For my combat shields I used thinned PVA worked fine...
RE: Oil paint on linen - Dan Howard - 01-18-2021
I like diluted PVA
RE: Oil paint on linen - Dan D'Silva - 01-18-2021
Thanks. I've got some old-fashioned gesso left from an earlier experiment. It's not very water-resistant but it might work with a solid layer of oil paint on top.