tom mazzullo
Golden Silverpoint Ground Test, April 2008
A while ago, I received from my friend Mary a copy of Just Paint, the Golden Artist Colors, Inc. newsletter announcing a new experimental silverpoint ground product. Excited, I called the company, based in nearby New Berlin, New York, to ask for a sample to test. No luck. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Mark Golden of Golden Paints visited the local art museum where my wife, Maggie, works.

During a conversation with Mr. Golden, Maggie told him that I was a silverpoint artist, and he got to see a catalogue photo of my drawings then in a show at the museum, so he promised to send along a sample of the new silverpoint ground for Maggie to give to me. Excited to finally get my hands on this stuff, I decided to document a test of this experimental product in my studio.
The box arrives with my glorious sample. A squeeze bottle - interesting.
A nice note to Maggie from someone at Golden.
Close-up of the bottle.
Safety labeling. Art supplies in general should be kept away from children.
A nice piece of Arches 140lb. hot press watercolor paper, my standard.
I mist the paper on the back with water from a spray bottle...
...then tape it down with mylar packing tape. This way, as it dries, it will shrink flat.
I give the bottle of Golden silverpoint ground a good shake...
...then squirt an ounce or so right in the middle of the paper. I kind of like the squeeze bottle idea.
I spread the ground quickly from edge to edge both vertically and horizontally using a two-inch flat squirrel-hair brush.
I'll tell you one thing: this stuff smells better than the casein paint I use.
I let it dry overnight, so it's good and hard, then carefully peel away the tape. If I'm in a rush, I'll dry the ground with a hair dryer, but the harder it is, the better. It's difficult to make a good drawing on a gooey surface.
At the drawing table, I make a light sketch of an o-ring on the prepared paper. The color of the ground is pure white, right out of the bottle, sort of a departure for me. I thought it would be good to draw something dark to really put the new ground to the test.
I'm really packing in the silver on this drawing, and the ground is holding up really well. I'm using a piece of 12-gauge half-hard silver jeweler's wire chucked in a 2mm lead holder, tapered to a point.
A close-up of the finished drawing. You can see that in some places I've really gotten a nice dark, and the ground hasn't chipped at all.
My opinion is that the Golden Silverpoint Ground is excellent right out of the bottle. It dries super hard, and is a brilliant white. For my tastes, the ground is a bit coarse, but coarseness possibly makes for a richer overall drawing.
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