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I have been finding a few things about silverpoint that are really personal.
I did my first stuff on pregessoed hardboard. Just the run of the mill generic. The acrylic gesso was not very thickly applied and if you look closely, you see the texture of the particles of board.
When I first used it, the stuff was like ink. It did not smear, it did not erase or even scratch off. I used rough gray eraser and finally some sandpaper, settling for a bit of white paint to bring back highlights I missed.
So I decided to buy the ground. I let it sit a year or more while I hunted up some white cotton gloves. I found right away that this nifty impervious stuff stopped sticking to the surface and realized it was my finger oils. That also started the oxidization quicker and on my sample from about two years ago, you can see (close up at the bottom) the way it stopped making crisp lines and how there grew a sort of tarry brown. None of which was really upsetting, but it was not under my control. Very haphazard.
The SP ground is nothing like this. It is made according to the Cennini recipe which, I believe used much more gentle stuff than modern acrylic gesso. The consistency is a lot like a gouache which I understand, along with China white is one of the standard surfaces. On theirs, you must have a very delicate hand, nearly balancing the point on the surface and building a surface of hatching and circular tone. I understand why it has a reputation for being time consuming.
I want to get some Realgesso panels, but was on a quest for a treatment that I could use on paper and tone it. I found some reference to "vermillion" surface as well as pink and blue grounds in the DaVinci drawings.
Basically I have chosen to use a modern gesso and am still experimenting with texture and pigments ranging from acrylic paint to ground pastel sticks to see what sort of surface I can get.
My decision is that a hard surface (next round is vellum of some sort and possibly even mylar!) on an even harder surface for the incredibly fine line I can get.
On a thick enough layer of gesso which I have found is not cracking as the gouache style surfaces would, I can get that clicking sound. If you try it on board, I swear, there is a harmonic sound that I am absolutely addicted to! It is like a musical equivalent of chalk skipping on the chalk board, but when I go in for a large area of parallel lines it is sort of musical.
Anyway, the experimentation is ongoing, but I do think I have achieved a nice surface I can apply to hot pressed watercolor paper at present to achieve the look I am after.
Below are the older close up of my first piece (I never know which is going to end up on top or bottom) and a little girl on my basic pink tone. Also a horse showing a little trouble I was having with some of the pastel not actually being dissolved in the mix.
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