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Decorating Defects - their cause and cure

Imitating Oriental Vert Antique Marble

The ground is black, in oil paint, with a little varnish added, and made quite smooth on the work to be marbled.
Mix the colours rather thick for marbling; middle Brunswick green, with boiled oil and a little turps with driers added. Mix some of the same colour with white lead, about half and half; keep the two colours separate on the palette board. Also mix a little white lead with driers, and keep it separate on the palette. Have ready the turps and gold size, as for the Egyptian green marble, and a strong goose feather (one out of the wing is the best); cut parts away as for the Egyptian green marble. Dip the feather into the turps and gold size and then in the dark colour; now dab or scumble on the panel or slab with the feather moderately full of the dark colour; work it on freely and carefully in different patches, some of them larger than others, varying them as much as possible, and soften thoroughly with the badger.
When the work is dry take a feather and cut as before; first dip it into the turps and gold size, and then in the stiff light colour; fill the feather rather full; put on veins of various sizes, and distribute them with taste, interspersing them with very fine veins; with the same feather and colour, the broader veins are put in, in a zigzag manner to make the irregular veins and, by suddenly checking the hand, make it take an angular direction so as to vary the veins.
When the work is sufficiently veined let it remain until dry; then take a flat sable fitch and dip it into the white, and on the darkest parts of the work dab the white carelessly on in various shapes, squares, and irregular triangles, in order to represent the fossil remains, etc. Take another fitch, dip into the black, and go over the lightest parts of the work in the same manner as the illustration.
Glazing is the same as for the Egyptian green marble.
We may observe that Egyptian, Vert Antique, Serpentine, and Malachite are the principal green marbles, and are the most varied in their colours and their workings.
These, with all other green marbles, may be produced in a similar manner to the Egyptian green marble. It will be advisable for the learner to procure some specimens of the different kinds of green marbles, as well as all other marbles, and not to attempt to imitate what he has never seen, although all the specimens in this site are worked from real pieces of marble, both in colour and markings.
The question has been asked whether in these days it is worth while for a busy man to learn the art of graining and marbling, the doubt implied arising from the decreased popularity of this class of decoration. Despite the decline of the art, proficiency in it is still a decided acquisition, and a really skilled grainer to the trade should seldom lack employment.