Rolling the first ground onto a raw panel and letting it starve into the weave.

This film opens on a bare panel and a bucket of rabbit-skin glue ground still warm from the pot. Ariesson rolls the first coat edge to edge in a single pass, then works back into the wet surface with a dry brush so the weave of the linen starves through unevenly — the texture that every later layer of pigment will catch on. Nothing is corrected once it goes down; the film shows the whole four minutes without a cut, including the two long pauses where he simply watches the ground dry under the lamp before deciding it's ready.