PAINTING MATERIALS

Lay Figure, a mechanical figure of human shape, usually of natural size and
covered with a knitted fabric. The armature is jointed, even to the fingers, and
can be put into postures like those taken in life. Such a complex mechanism has
been used for the arrangement of draperies for study purposes and has had a wide
utility in professional portrait painting because it permitted the artist to work on
costume without a sitting. The lay figure probably superseded models and
manikins, and it is doubtful if its use was at all general before the XVIII century.
It is listed in the catalogues of artists' colormen in the early XIX century and is
still occasionally seen.

FIGURE 12. Parts of a gilder's equipment (after Thompson, The Practice of Tempera
Painting* pp. 56 and 57): (a) the cushion of leather with a shield of parchment or paper
and straps underneath for holding; (3) a knife for cutting the leaf on the cushion; (c)
tips of fine hair in different lengths used for picking up the leaf. (These are out of scale,
the size of the cushion being represented as too small for the others.)
Lead Point. Lead is among the various soft metals which, drawn over an
abrasive ground, produce a distinguishable and clean mark (figure 7, <:). Its place
in the recorded history of drawing is vague because of the natural confusion of
this metal with silver and its later confusion with the graphite pencil which,
almost from the beginning, was called a 'lead* pencil.
Mahlstick or Maulstick, a light stick or rod of wood, with a soft leather-
covered ball at one end; it is to rest and support the painting hand. The ball rests
against a part of the easel, or at times against a part of the painting. The opposite
end is held by the hand which holds the palette, and the working hand is rested
on the stick itself. The sticks made commercially are usually of hard wood or
bamboo, jointed with brass ferrules to give them a length of four feet. Early
catalogues of artists' supplies speak of this as a rest stick, and it still carries that
name. It was probably not much used before the time of oil paintings on a large
scale and does not appear to be mentioned or referred to in the Mediaeval and
Renaissance treatises on painting. A few instances of it appear in representations
of artists made during the XVI century and it has a regular place in the hands of
the painters as they are shown in works of the XVII century and later.