The Botticelli Project

Take a 10' x 6' canvas, a number of TV cameras and a superbly located studio.....

Pete, Maz, Rob, Rebecca and Rolf

........add 4 tempera painters and a singer/songwriter/artist and TV presenter.......     Allow them five days of filming to see just how far they can get with painting Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.........

Rolf on Art is a BBC TV production and features Rolf Harris who presents the lives and times of individual selected artists. During the program Rolf paints his own version of a painting of the featured artist.
One of the series included the life and work of Sandro Botticelli and the painting to be featured would be The Birth of Venus painted on a canvas almost 10 feet long by 6 feet high and using egg tempera. Rolf had not used egg tempera so a bit of help and tuition was required. Maz Jackson, Rebecca Merry, Peter Murphy and Rob Milliken, members of the society, were commissioned to act as assistants to Rolf in the studio.

Preparing The Canvas

The fine Belgium linen canvas had been stretched over a sheet of medium density fibre board which was strengthened with battens. It was suggested that the medium density fibre board be directly behind the canvas so as to give it rigidity.
Maz Jackson and Rob Milliken prepared the canvas the day before filming was to start. 4 pints of rabbit skin glue size were applied to the canvas which absorbed it like a sponge. Similarly, it took an equal amount of gesso to provide two thin coats.
The process was accelerated between coats by the use of hair dryers and a fan heater.The canvas was then laid flat and allowed to dry completely overnight before being transported to the studio.

An ingenious easel was constructed. It consisted of tall trestles and scaffolding boards weighted down with stage weights and sandbags!!

Day 1 The morning was spent setting up the TV equipment and grinding pigments into paste. After lunch Rolf Harris drew out his version of the composition with charcoal. It took about 2 hours to complete the drawing.The excess charcoal was brushed off with feathers and the drawing re-instated using dilute egg tempera paint. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with getting the initial underpainting started.

End of Day 1

Day 2 Work progressed in earnest. Each of us worked on a certain area. Did we get in the way of each other?? Yes, but it was just fortunate that we were all good friends!! By the end of the day the underpainting was well established in key areas.

End of Day 2

Day 3 No filming or Rolf today. It was a day when the four tempera painters could get on without any interuptions. The day did not start too well. In the first instance we had become accustomed to the high activity of the previous two days plus the enthusiasm of Rolf. Today was quiet. It was an extremely damp day which seemed to effect the paint and the canvas. We battled on and it was not until about lunch time that we were able to get really working again. We did in fact work until 7pm, an hour overtime!!

End of Day 3

Day 4 Back to all the activity and a very intense day. Today Rolf was to stamp his mark on the painting and make it his version of The Birth of Venus. He admits that he is an impressionistic painter and throughout the day added many impressionistic marks. Considering the size of the painting it did work out. It was the day for us to lose our preciousness about our certain completed areas.

It was also a day when the producer/director, Steve and assistant producer Roni got stuck in!!

End of Day 4

Day 5 We thought yesterday was an intense day...................... We start to pull as much of the painting together as we could for the final pieces to camera. There were only a few key areas that we could say were reasonably complete. Compromises had to be made and some underpainting was strengthened, other areas were left alone. As the day progressed the activity level rose. Towards late afternoon it was time for the shell gold and gold leaf to be applied all of which had to be filmed. Time was called an hour and a half over the scheduled time limit.....the painting was by no means finished.

End of Day 5

Just a few of the people to make a TV program!

 

The program was shown on BBC ONE on 10th October 2004