Painters Workshop
Focusing on a single trade, we provide a detailed exploration of Elizabethan art and it’s craft practices. Painters were skilled craftsmen whose work touched almost every corner of Elizabethan life, from cutting edge scientific discovery, and religious devotions to Inn signs in remote villages. Visitors will be invited to explore a world of colour and symbolism as well as talk about poisons and trade, view the world through a camera obscure or try their hand at grinding pigments to make paint.
Tudor stained cloth in production
Adam and Eve chased from Eden
Detail of replica Tudor stained cloth
Making Tudor paint
Prints as well as paintbrushes
Painted Furniture
Tudor painting - tools of the trade
Tudor design sources
Camera Obscura
Girls at work
The White Hart
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Tudor stained cloth in production
Printed hangings (stained cloths) were an affordable and popular form of home decoration. About a third of surviving inventories of peoples' possessions contain them. Sigrid has prepared the canvas and is marking out the basic design. -
Adam and Eve chased from Eden
After the reformation, old testament scenes were considered suitable imagery for homes, if not churches. -
Detail of replica Tudor stained cloth
Paint was used thinly to keep Elizabethan stained cloth affordable. -
Making Tudor paint
Visitors enjoy exploring all of the weird and wonderful ingredients used in Elizabethan art. With no pre-made paint in Tudor Britain, people working in every medium and style had to produce their own, whether they were making fine art or cheap printed cloths. We invite peple to take their turn at the grinding slab. -
Prints as well as paintbrushes
Printed and stencilled works were quick and easy to produce and brightened up dull spaces instantly. -
Painted Furniture
To make a living, painters needs to turn their hands to many forms of work, including chests, screens, minatures, hangings, walls, and even the printed page. -
Tudor painting - tools of the trade
As well as paints, a painter needed to make all his own brushes, pasteboard, varnishes and glues. They also needed a multitude of tools from water filled glass globes (magnifiers), to wooden frames stretched with string (for gridding up) and weasels' teeth for polishing gold leaf. -
Tudor design sources
German woodcuts provided inspiration for many British painters. Specific design books for craftsmen produced both in Italy and Germany provided patterns for decorative artwork across many mediums, for example to draw up embroidery design on to cloth. -
Camera Obscura
Look through the world through our camera obscura. The small wooden box in this workshop is one of the professional secrets of the renaissance painters' art. It projects a colour image, but it is upside down. -
Girls at work
Painting was a family business led by the male head of the household and utilised a mixture of apprentices and family labour. -
The White Hart
Much of the surviving painting in Britain is" rustic" in style. Cheap and cheerful has always been popular.