The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 259 Shen Le: After restoring ancient paintings for a month, I can go out and sell pancakes!

After being trained by Teacher Zhang for almost a month, Shen Le was finally allowed to start restoring the ancient painting - to be precise, he could start washing the painting.

He cut off all the partitions around the center of the painting, that is, the top and bottom, front and back of the center, which were all embroidered satin of a different color from the center of the painting, and placed them aside for later repair.

Place the remaining paintings on the workbench, slightly wet them with water, and let the center of the paintings moisten and stretch...

Shen Le had never been able to practice this step well before, no matter how hard he tried.

Teacher Zhang took a sip of water and sprayed it lightly on the painting. There was a layer of misty wetness on the picture, but there were no obvious water spots.

When Shen Le sprayed himself, he took a mouthful of water and sprayed it on the rice paper. With a puff, a large pool of water immediately appeared on the rice paper...

"I told you to spray gently! Spray gently! I didn't tell you to spit up!" Teacher Zhang was very disappointed:
"Take a little bit and spray gently!"

Shen Le tried again. He took a sip of water, applied pressure through his teeth, opened his lips slightly, and sprayed it out gently...

With a puff, it didn't spray right and landed on the workbench.

"Harder! Didn't you eat today?"

Shen Le gritted his teeth and tried again. This time, a few small drops of water sprayed out and landed on the rice paper. It didn't look like "endless rain as fine as sorrow", but like a hailstone falling down...

"You... you should consider using a spray bottle..."

Teacher Zhang was helpless. What a pity, spraying with saliva is a unique skill passed down to him by his teacher, the older generation of restorers. It seems that this little guy can't learn it...

Shen Le shrugged and smiled happily. It should have been like this a long time ago! Why do you keep torturing him?

In the words of the ancients, the nature of a gentleman is not different, but he is good at making use of things;

From the perspective of modern evolutionary theory, the fundamental difference between humans and animals is that humans can make tools and use them to work.

Forget about making tools, he can't make a spray bottle, but other humans can make them, and he is a human, so rounding it off means he can make them;
Use tools...

Shen Le picked up a spray bottle, filled it with Forever Wahaha, and sprayed it upwards. Teacher Zhang stood aside and watched, shaking his head:
"This spray bottle is of poor quality. Change it!"

A spray bottle for watering flowers will not work.

The two dollar travel size makeup spray bottle is not acceptable.

The five-dollar spray bottle that claims to be able to spray nano-level fine mist doesn't work either.

Shen Le kept changing until he finally ended up with three bottles of Evian mineral water spray for 100 yuan. The fineness of the water mist finally won the approval of Teacher Zhang.

The little oil lamp swung overhead, laughing loudly:

[Alas, poor students have more stationery. There is no other way. Since their level is not high enough, they have to rely on external forces to make up for it! ]

Shen Le really wanted to catch it and beat it up. However, the teacher was watching steadily beside him, so he could only spray water patiently, spray water, spray the center of the painting evenly;
When the center of the painting was moist and stretched, and had a certain strength, and could be moved carefully without causing further damage, he began to mix the paste again under the supervision of Teacher Zhang:

"It feels like cooking... Every day I mix paste, mix paste, mix paste of different thicknesses..."

Mixing paste is also one of the basic skills of calligraphy and painting restoration. Different materials of drawing paper and painting silk, and different uses, require different thicknesses of paste:
Qingtuo silk and Tuojin silk use a low-density paste;

The processes of supporting dye paper, supporting backing paper, supporting the center of the painting and the backing need to use thin paste;

For mixed silk, brocade and silk painting, use a semi-fluid paste that is neither too thick nor too thin...

And this is just mounting. In the process of cultural relics restoration, the situation is more complicated and the requirements for paste are more complicated. Teacher Zhang glared at him fiercely:
"Just be content. I washed the starch for you. I didn't ask you to wash the flour first. You said it was just like cooking, but I didn't see you cook a few dishes to honor me!"

Shen Le: “…”

Teacher, whenever you are here with me, you eat with me the dishes sent by Tianxianglou, those rice, vegetables, and meat that are rich in spiritual energy.

You can't get those things anywhere else, and even if you do get a bite, they're astronomically expensive. What on earth are you dissatisfied with?
As for washing starch and the like, Shen Le once struggled and said, "Can't we just buy it?"

There are various kinds of starch for sale online, including wheat starch, corn starch, and potato starch.

Even if you only need wheat starch, there are wheat starch pastes for home use, commercial use, use for making noodles, use for cold skin, and even use for mounting!
"You wish!" Teacher Zhang scolded him:

"Don't you see the ingredients of those starches? They even contain sodium! God knows what kind of production process was used!
This kind of industrial starch must not be used, it is better to wash it yourself!"

The starch that is washed out is used, and the gluten is discarded - in the early years, Teacher Zhang’s teacher’s generation would take the gluten back home as a snack - the starch is put into a drying box to be dried, and then ground into powder.

Then, dissolve it with deionized water and stir it into a thick paste. Then pour boiling water into it, stirring it while pouring, until the paste changes from pure white to a uniform, translucent milky white color... "Teacher, can't we record which kind of paste is required, how much water and starch are needed, and make the paste according to the accurate ratio?"

"Well, then you were a little lazy when stirring, pouring the boiling water faster or slower, and the resulting paste was not right?"

Shen Le spent a week just preparing the paste. Under the teacher's supervision, he kept adding water and stirring, until he turned himself into a human blender.

He had a vague feeling that after this wave of experience, he would definitely be able to go out and sell pancakes on the street. He could mix the batter, scoop it up and pour it onto the iron plate, and flatten it with a wooden board. His movements were so smooth that no one would be able to tell that he was a novice!
Shen Le kept mixing the paste and brushing it on various materials. After intensive training at all costs, he quickly mastered the skills of mixing various pastes.

He brushed some thin paste on the cotton paper strips and initially fixed the fragments and damaged parts before he could start cleaning:
Use a dry soft brush to gently remove the mold and dust attached to the surface of the painting;

Dip the brush in water and brush the mildew stains repeatedly to further remove the dry mildew that has soaked into the silk mesh;
Finally, you need to use a horseshoe knife specially used for calligraphy and painting restoration - not a sharp scalpel - to gently remove the hard stains attached to the surface, such as insect and fly feces...

After this step, you can't start watering directly. Shen Le had read the literature before and knew that washing the heavily colored parts with water would wash away the pigments and damage the spirit of the painting.

The restorers naturally have ways to deal with this situation. Teacher Zhang took out a pile of paper and instructed Shen Le:

"Here, wet them, put them on the colored parts, and press with appropriate pressure. - Are you familiar with the pressure?"

This process is to detect whether the color of the picture is fading or running, which is similar to the color fastness experiment of the fabric - the dry rubbing and wet rubbing experiments are similar in nature, but much more gentle than these experiments.

If you press too lightly, the colors on the painting may fall off and will not stick to the wet paper strips; if you press too hard, the painting to be restored will definitely not be able to withstand such damage.

When Shen Le first tried, he wanted to get a pressure gauge to assist him, but Teacher Zhang scolded him again and again...

After testing, many parts have the potential for discoloration:

Paint the heavy red, green and indigo parts of the clothes, the azurite and malachite parts of the green landscape, and the cinnabar on the willow branches.

Shen Le had to painstakingly mix a dilute gelatin and carefully brush it on these areas to fix the color.

Once the diluted gelatin has dried thoroughly and there is no risk of discoloration, you can start preparing for washing the painting:
"Come on, put some plastic on the table..."

Shen Le's mouth twitched. Teacher Zhang was talking about plastic sheeting, but in his hand he held a roll of extra-large plastic wrap, one end of which was pressed against the edge of the table, while the other end was pulled outward.

After a while of brushing, spread it on the tabletop sprayed with water, just a circle larger than the center of the painting. Then brush it flat and stick it on the tabletop, flat and smooth without any wrinkles!

When Shen Le first saw the cling film method, he was shocked. Thinking about it again, he felt that it made sense:
This thing is big, thin, easy to attach to the desktop, and comes with a built-in breaker. What's more, it's cheap and readily available. The lab is running out of it, so just place another order!
The only problem is...

"Then teacher, the widest piece of plastic wrap is only 50 centimeters. What if the painting is bigger? Should I use two pieces of plastic wrap to put them together?"

What should I do when I turn over? Will the plastic wrap that is only wet and stuck together suddenly slip off?
"What do you say?"

Shen Le tried hard to think. Various household items flashed through his mind, and finally, one thing stood out:
“Disposable plastic tablecloths?”

"What about something bigger? An eight-foot painting?"

Shen Le couldn't answer this question until Teacher Zhang revealed the answer with a mysterious smile:

"Plastic film for agricultural greenhouses."

Shen Le: “…”

This is really a very eclectic use of tools...

Apply the plastic film and then lay the painting to be restored on it.

The water mist sprayed previously has dried up a bit, so this time you need to spray more water to make the center of the painting slightly swell.

Then, use a brush dipped in clean water to wet the center of the painting, let it absorb on the plastic sheet, and then put it in place. After these tasks are completed, you can use clean water at about 60 degrees to start washing the center of the painting:
While showering, use the entire brush to gently press and squeeze out the dirty water.

Repeat the rinse 2-3 times, and you can clearly see that the squeezed yellow-brown sewage becomes lighter, and the ink color of the picture becomes clear...

"It's clean! It's really clean!"

Even though he had practiced it many times, Shen Le couldn't help but get excited when he witnessed the moment the image was cleared.

In addition to the changes that ordinary people see with their naked eyes, Shen Le's spiritual eyes also saw a faint glow:
The spirituality of this silk painting began to awaken, and its memory and heritage began to revive!

"Shen Le, Shen Le! ——Shen Le, what's wrong with you!!!"

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(End of this chapter)