This has been in the works for a while but with Ghostbuster's 40th anniversary coming up I thought it was finally time to make this post. I've done this painting of Vigo. I like to think it's a fairly decent painting, but there's a bit more to it than that. I'm going to talk you through the process of making it, and hopefully it will be of interest to some. I'll warn you now, it's quite a long post as I've been down a bit of a rabbit hole on this one...
So I paint things. Sometimes for fun, sometimes commissions. Sometimes I copy movie paintings; it passes the time. I buy cheap canvases from the Works (a bargain basement store here in the UK) and use acrylic paint to throw together an approximation.
A few years ago I was looking at one of these paintings and i realised, as prop replicas go it just wasn't right.
Most instances of paintings in film probably aren't actual paintings, more likely they are prints that have been weathered and distressed. So what was I doing? I wasn't recreating a prop, I was recreating what a prop was trying to be, and I wasn't doing a great job of it on my cheap canvasses with stupid acrylic paints. And I started to wonder... what would it take to make a really authentic artifact? Say the painting of Vigo the Carpathian. What would it take to really make that?
So off the back of that brain fart I began to research the techniques and materials of the old masters... and I got a little way with this before I started to understand that painting like an old master is one thing, painting a painting that looks and feels genuinely old is another.
And that tipped me in another direction and I started studying the techniques of famous art forgers; Eric Hebborn, Tom Keating, Max Brandrett, Ken Perenyi... and I put together a plan.
The following is an abbreviated account of the process I've followed. There was a lot more testing and failure before we got this far.
STRUCTURE
A painting 12 foot tall was going to be a bit of a stretch on both finances and work space, so I decided to scale Vigo down to a more manageable size. I went with 47 x 75cm (1.5' x 2.5'). Can't remember why I chose those measurements as it was some time ago now, but it probably related to the size I could print my reference pictures.
We know from the movie that Vigo is meant to have been terrorising Moldavia between 1505 and 1610, and that the painting was created towards the end of his life. This suggests Vigo was going through his artsy boho phase around 1600.
We never see the back of the painting but research suggested early canvases were mounted on a wooden construction called a "strainer"; an inflexible, braced wooden frame.
I knew I needed some wood to craft the strainer. The most easily sourced and geographically appropriate was Russian Pine, so I ordered in some lengths. Off-cuts would later be used to test staining and aging techniques.
Construction followed a basic plan and was assisted by my father (a master wood worker). The surface was planed to remove any machining marks, lap joints were hand sawn, then glued with rabbit skin glue. The wood was then stained with the classic concoction of vinegar and wire-wool which oxidises the surface of the wood and creates an authentic aged patina. I stained exposed areas more than areas that would later be hidden as these areas would naturally receive less weathering. This was completely unnecessary but some part of me wanted it to be right, even if taken apart.
I rubbed the frame with a glass paperweight which served to round off the sharp edges of the wood and compress some of the fibres, making it FEEL older. Finally I banged it around the workshop a little, as nothing old avoids getting a bit dinged up.
CANVAS
The movie explicitly shows that Vigo was painted on canvas, and luckily (from a historical accuracy point of view) canvas was just coming into common use around this time.
After a little research I found a marvelous website selling antique linens from all over Europe (How amazing is the internet?)! I ordered a couple of vintage Hungarian hand-made linens to choose between as they, again, seemed geographically appropriate.
When it arrived, the canvas was cut roughly to size and stained, using the strainer bars as a mask for areas which should not have been exposed to the elements.
To hold the canvas on the strainer I needed nails. My first thought was to order nails from a blacksmith, but when these arrived they were huge! I struggled to think where I might find something more appropriate but in my wanderings spotted a tin full of vintage furniture tacks at a reclamation yard. I can't be certain what time period they are from but they seem pretty old to me.
With the aid of my wife I stretched the canvas over the frame and tacked it into place using a nifty little magnetic tack hammer (tool acquisition of the year!). Definitely a two person job this bit. Excess canvas was removed using sand paper against the edges of the strainer to wear and fray edges.
MAKING THE PAINT
It turns out it is not easy to acquire paint made from the same materials as those used in the 16th Century. Some pigments are now deemed too toxic, some have been replaced with brighter, stronger and more stable compounds. Even when you can purchase a tube of the correct pigment, it will have been mixed by a machine to a perfect inhuman consistency, and may have been adulterated with stabilisers and other modern chemicals. If I wanted paints that were indistinguishable from renaissance materials, I was going to have to make them myself.
When starting to research pigments I discovered we have one of the best art shops in the world in London. Cornelissen and Son has been serving artists since 1855 and still stocks a mind blowing range of authentic artists' materials. If you're ever in London, I highly recommend you pop in and have a look, even if art is not your thing. It's a couple of buildings down from the British Museum and still has all of the original Victorian fixtures and fittings. It is like something straight out of Harry Potter and a truly magical place. From these wonderful people I ordered pigments authentic to the time, oils for mixing paint, hog bristle brushes and rabbit skin glue.
The pigments I chose were from Caravaggio's known palette and included:
Burnt Umber (dark brown earth tone)
Burnt Sienna (red-brown earth tone)
Vine Black (carbon black made from burnt grape vines)
Yellow Ochre (another earth tone, but in yellow)
Red Ochre (yet another earth tone, obviously in red)
Lead White (a somewhat toxic white)
Lead Tin Yellow (a highly toxic yellow)
Cinnabar (a mercury compound that creates a bright red - and yes, this one is highly toxic)
You may know this already but all paint is a combination of pigment and binder. This is probably no huge surprise to anyone, but in oil paints the binder is an oil, usually linseed. By using a tool called a muller (essentially a glass pestle) you can effectively combine powdered pigment with oil on a glass slab.
As a test I first mixed some Burnt Sienna as this pigment was cheap, I had plenty of it and it's largely harmless. Some of the other pigments were pretty pricey so I only had small quantities that I planned to use in the final stages of the painting.
Mixing Burnt Sienna went well so I slowly worked my way through the additional colours. I stored my mixed paints in empty paint tubes; not a period solution but shouldn't leave a trace that might be detected (and I was all out of pig's bladders). I worked with full PPE, mask, gloves, extractor but the mixing was pretty smooth sailing. The hardest part of the process was cleaning up afterwards.
Before I finished with the paint mixing, I also mixed up a tube of "Ground", a paint that I would use to tone the canvas before I started building up layers of colour.
CANVAS PREPARATION
I "sized" the canvas using rabbit skin glue. For those who have not experienced the delights of "RSG", this is a traditional glue made from boiled rabbit skins. Thankfully rather than boiling dead animals directly, I was able to purchase pellets of the traditional adhesive. These still need to be soaked and boiled, but I'm lead to believe they smell a lot better than making RSG from scratch. This layer is part of the traditional process, and serves to protect the linen from the effects of acidic oil paint. It also helps tighten the canvas so it's easier to paint on. The next few layers were a mix of chalk powder and more RSG to further smooth and seal the surface.
My wife was very happy to hear this was the last time I would be using her cookware to boil animal glue.
The ground that I'd mixed and stored in the previous stage was then applied thickly with a cheap hog bristle brush left to dry for a couple of weeks.
Really, at this stage I should have sanded the ground back with a pumice stone to make it nice and smooth but I was worried about the lead that might be freed in the resulting dust. After the fact I regret not doing this as the surface ended up rougher than I would have liked.
FINALLY PUTTING VIGO ON THE CANVAS
I copied the composition onto the prepared canvas in charcoal using a grid method.
I knew from experience that the charcoal drawing would be very fragile and the slightest disturbance would remove it, so swiftly moved on to the painting stage to make sure my hard work was locked in place.
This phase is the underpainting. It follows the traditional process of painting in a monotone before applying colour. Theoretically this allows you to focus on the composition before complicating matters and should add more luminescence to the final painting.
Once the underpainting was roughly in place I toned the painting by scrubbing yellow ochre into it, then started working in colour and detail. I started general and got more specific as I went, slowly homing in on the likeness.
Of course, working with authentic pigments presented a new challenge for me and there was quite a learning curve. These days, paint is perfectly smooth and most of the colours handle fairly similarly. These home made paints were of wildly different tinting strengths and consistencies. The Vine Black was greasy, Yellow Ochre was stiff, Lead Tin Yellow loose. The Yellows and Lead White were incredibly weak, but Red Ochre overpowered anything it was mixed with. In fact, it was incredibly difficult to get any kind of orange through mixing and I ended up relying mostly on glazing layers of yellow over the painting towards the end of the process to try to get the colours I needed.
You'd think I'd have more to talk about in the painting stage, but at this point all I'm doing is playing spot the difference with my reference. What do I need to change to make Vigo look more like Vigo? I spent a lot of time adjusting his face, and I did have to purchase a finer sable brush for some of the detail work as hog bristle just wasn't cutting it.
So I got the painting to a point where I was happy with it. What next?
The almost last step will be to varnish the painting. One of the easiest methods of spotting a modern painting masquerading as an old one is whether the varnish fluoresces under UV. As one expert said: not all old paintings fluoresce, but you should be suspicious of one that doesn't.
After more research I learned that there are varnishes that not only fluoresce correctly, but may also be used to induce cracking in an authentic fashion... and this is where I've stopped for now. I'm waiting for some test panels to dry whilst I build up the courage to attempt this.
In the mean time I've weathered the back. Using a concoction of various dusts I aged the canvas and stretcher and put debris between the canvas and the stretcher where it might have gathered naturally. I also intend to affix some ownership labels to the back of the stretcher to indicate collections the painting may have passed through, but still need to give that some thought.
So there you go. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on this over the years, particularly if you include all the time spent dragging my wife around galleries so I can examine specific crackle patterns on old artworks. I've built a wealth of reference of the structure of old paintings... and probably a reputation as a potential art-thief amongst Italian museum staff.
As with all projects I look back and there are things I wish I had done differently but overall I'm pretty proud of what I've achieved. The only problem I have now is where to hang it.
So I paint things. Sometimes for fun, sometimes commissions. Sometimes I copy movie paintings; it passes the time. I buy cheap canvases from the Works (a bargain basement store here in the UK) and use acrylic paint to throw together an approximation.
A few years ago I was looking at one of these paintings and i realised, as prop replicas go it just wasn't right.
Most instances of paintings in film probably aren't actual paintings, more likely they are prints that have been weathered and distressed. So what was I doing? I wasn't recreating a prop, I was recreating what a prop was trying to be, and I wasn't doing a great job of it on my cheap canvasses with stupid acrylic paints. And I started to wonder... what would it take to make a really authentic artifact? Say the painting of Vigo the Carpathian. What would it take to really make that?
So off the back of that brain fart I began to research the techniques and materials of the old masters... and I got a little way with this before I started to understand that painting like an old master is one thing, painting a painting that looks and feels genuinely old is another.
And that tipped me in another direction and I started studying the techniques of famous art forgers; Eric Hebborn, Tom Keating, Max Brandrett, Ken Perenyi... and I put together a plan.
The following is an abbreviated account of the process I've followed. There was a lot more testing and failure before we got this far.
STRUCTURE
A painting 12 foot tall was going to be a bit of a stretch on both finances and work space, so I decided to scale Vigo down to a more manageable size. I went with 47 x 75cm (1.5' x 2.5'). Can't remember why I chose those measurements as it was some time ago now, but it probably related to the size I could print my reference pictures.
We know from the movie that Vigo is meant to have been terrorising Moldavia between 1505 and 1610, and that the painting was created towards the end of his life. This suggests Vigo was going through his artsy boho phase around 1600.
We never see the back of the painting but research suggested early canvases were mounted on a wooden construction called a "strainer"; an inflexible, braced wooden frame.
I knew I needed some wood to craft the strainer. The most easily sourced and geographically appropriate was Russian Pine, so I ordered in some lengths. Off-cuts would later be used to test staining and aging techniques.
Construction followed a basic plan and was assisted by my father (a master wood worker). The surface was planed to remove any machining marks, lap joints were hand sawn, then glued with rabbit skin glue. The wood was then stained with the classic concoction of vinegar and wire-wool which oxidises the surface of the wood and creates an authentic aged patina. I stained exposed areas more than areas that would later be hidden as these areas would naturally receive less weathering. This was completely unnecessary but some part of me wanted it to be right, even if taken apart.
I rubbed the frame with a glass paperweight which served to round off the sharp edges of the wood and compress some of the fibres, making it FEEL older. Finally I banged it around the workshop a little, as nothing old avoids getting a bit dinged up.
CANVAS
The movie explicitly shows that Vigo was painted on canvas, and luckily (from a historical accuracy point of view) canvas was just coming into common use around this time.
After a little research I found a marvelous website selling antique linens from all over Europe (How amazing is the internet?)! I ordered a couple of vintage Hungarian hand-made linens to choose between as they, again, seemed geographically appropriate.
When it arrived, the canvas was cut roughly to size and stained, using the strainer bars as a mask for areas which should not have been exposed to the elements.
To hold the canvas on the strainer I needed nails. My first thought was to order nails from a blacksmith, but when these arrived they were huge! I struggled to think where I might find something more appropriate but in my wanderings spotted a tin full of vintage furniture tacks at a reclamation yard. I can't be certain what time period they are from but they seem pretty old to me.
With the aid of my wife I stretched the canvas over the frame and tacked it into place using a nifty little magnetic tack hammer (tool acquisition of the year!). Definitely a two person job this bit. Excess canvas was removed using sand paper against the edges of the strainer to wear and fray edges.
MAKING THE PAINT
It turns out it is not easy to acquire paint made from the same materials as those used in the 16th Century. Some pigments are now deemed too toxic, some have been replaced with brighter, stronger and more stable compounds. Even when you can purchase a tube of the correct pigment, it will have been mixed by a machine to a perfect inhuman consistency, and may have been adulterated with stabilisers and other modern chemicals. If I wanted paints that were indistinguishable from renaissance materials, I was going to have to make them myself.
When starting to research pigments I discovered we have one of the best art shops in the world in London. Cornelissen and Son has been serving artists since 1855 and still stocks a mind blowing range of authentic artists' materials. If you're ever in London, I highly recommend you pop in and have a look, even if art is not your thing. It's a couple of buildings down from the British Museum and still has all of the original Victorian fixtures and fittings. It is like something straight out of Harry Potter and a truly magical place. From these wonderful people I ordered pigments authentic to the time, oils for mixing paint, hog bristle brushes and rabbit skin glue.
The pigments I chose were from Caravaggio's known palette and included:
Burnt Umber (dark brown earth tone)
Burnt Sienna (red-brown earth tone)
Vine Black (carbon black made from burnt grape vines)
Yellow Ochre (another earth tone, but in yellow)
Red Ochre (yet another earth tone, obviously in red)
Lead White (a somewhat toxic white)
Lead Tin Yellow (a highly toxic yellow)
Cinnabar (a mercury compound that creates a bright red - and yes, this one is highly toxic)
You may know this already but all paint is a combination of pigment and binder. This is probably no huge surprise to anyone, but in oil paints the binder is an oil, usually linseed. By using a tool called a muller (essentially a glass pestle) you can effectively combine powdered pigment with oil on a glass slab.
As a test I first mixed some Burnt Sienna as this pigment was cheap, I had plenty of it and it's largely harmless. Some of the other pigments were pretty pricey so I only had small quantities that I planned to use in the final stages of the painting.
Mixing Burnt Sienna went well so I slowly worked my way through the additional colours. I stored my mixed paints in empty paint tubes; not a period solution but shouldn't leave a trace that might be detected (and I was all out of pig's bladders). I worked with full PPE, mask, gloves, extractor but the mixing was pretty smooth sailing. The hardest part of the process was cleaning up afterwards.
Before I finished with the paint mixing, I also mixed up a tube of "Ground", a paint that I would use to tone the canvas before I started building up layers of colour.
CANVAS PREPARATION
I "sized" the canvas using rabbit skin glue. For those who have not experienced the delights of "RSG", this is a traditional glue made from boiled rabbit skins. Thankfully rather than boiling dead animals directly, I was able to purchase pellets of the traditional adhesive. These still need to be soaked and boiled, but I'm lead to believe they smell a lot better than making RSG from scratch. This layer is part of the traditional process, and serves to protect the linen from the effects of acidic oil paint. It also helps tighten the canvas so it's easier to paint on. The next few layers were a mix of chalk powder and more RSG to further smooth and seal the surface.
My wife was very happy to hear this was the last time I would be using her cookware to boil animal glue.
The ground that I'd mixed and stored in the previous stage was then applied thickly with a cheap hog bristle brush left to dry for a couple of weeks.
Really, at this stage I should have sanded the ground back with a pumice stone to make it nice and smooth but I was worried about the lead that might be freed in the resulting dust. After the fact I regret not doing this as the surface ended up rougher than I would have liked.
FINALLY PUTTING VIGO ON THE CANVAS
I copied the composition onto the prepared canvas in charcoal using a grid method.
I knew from experience that the charcoal drawing would be very fragile and the slightest disturbance would remove it, so swiftly moved on to the painting stage to make sure my hard work was locked in place.
This phase is the underpainting. It follows the traditional process of painting in a monotone before applying colour. Theoretically this allows you to focus on the composition before complicating matters and should add more luminescence to the final painting.
Once the underpainting was roughly in place I toned the painting by scrubbing yellow ochre into it, then started working in colour and detail. I started general and got more specific as I went, slowly homing in on the likeness.
Of course, working with authentic pigments presented a new challenge for me and there was quite a learning curve. These days, paint is perfectly smooth and most of the colours handle fairly similarly. These home made paints were of wildly different tinting strengths and consistencies. The Vine Black was greasy, Yellow Ochre was stiff, Lead Tin Yellow loose. The Yellows and Lead White were incredibly weak, but Red Ochre overpowered anything it was mixed with. In fact, it was incredibly difficult to get any kind of orange through mixing and I ended up relying mostly on glazing layers of yellow over the painting towards the end of the process to try to get the colours I needed.
You'd think I'd have more to talk about in the painting stage, but at this point all I'm doing is playing spot the difference with my reference. What do I need to change to make Vigo look more like Vigo? I spent a lot of time adjusting his face, and I did have to purchase a finer sable brush for some of the detail work as hog bristle just wasn't cutting it.
So I got the painting to a point where I was happy with it. What next?
The almost last step will be to varnish the painting. One of the easiest methods of spotting a modern painting masquerading as an old one is whether the varnish fluoresces under UV. As one expert said: not all old paintings fluoresce, but you should be suspicious of one that doesn't.
After more research I learned that there are varnishes that not only fluoresce correctly, but may also be used to induce cracking in an authentic fashion... and this is where I've stopped for now. I'm waiting for some test panels to dry whilst I build up the courage to attempt this.
In the mean time I've weathered the back. Using a concoction of various dusts I aged the canvas and stretcher and put debris between the canvas and the stretcher where it might have gathered naturally. I also intend to affix some ownership labels to the back of the stretcher to indicate collections the painting may have passed through, but still need to give that some thought.
So there you go. I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on this over the years, particularly if you include all the time spent dragging my wife around galleries so I can examine specific crackle patterns on old artworks. I've built a wealth of reference of the structure of old paintings... and probably a reputation as a potential art-thief amongst Italian museum staff.
As with all projects I look back and there are things I wish I had done differently but overall I'm pretty proud of what I've achieved. The only problem I have now is where to hang it.
