It's a studio day, today. And a day of experimentation. I've been attracted to gold leaf for years, bought some supplies many years ago when we were still living in NJ - make that over 10 years ago then for these supplies! But I did keep them - and must have tried some of them at one point, since one bottle of the liquid adhesive has totally separated, never to be mixed again!
But I do have some new supplies, as of yesterday, after reading up on Pinterest and watching some YouTube videos. So, a complete, total novice, I just plowed right in today preparing various surfaces for gold leaf (the cheaper version, a blend of copper & zinc, if I recall rightly). That's something like .40/sheet vs. many many big bucks per sheet!
Here are a few photos taken of the studio before & during some of the experiments.
Before I began - Spunky's bed is beneath the table, as she often likes to be in the same room as I am.
Various surfaces: on the right are wood panels, some with gesso, some plain wood. On the right are small canvases - I want to foil some and flow paint on others! After all, it's a day to play!
Some of the paints, mediums, brushes, etc. that I'll be needing.
Some of the metal foil packets, some new brushes, etc.
Golden's modeling paste - to add texture to whatever comes next.
Golden's Iridescent/Pearlescent Medium painted on two panels.
The same medium was used to attach fabric squares to another gessoed panel. I thought/think it would be fun to use silver metal foil with these swatches!
Here is a gessoed wood panel that has been foiled with metallic gold leaf. This is an imperfect sort of medium in that the foil sheets are extremely fragile, tear easily, and fall apart even more easily! I chose NOT to use a full sheet for the upper right corner of this panel, believing that I will be using acrylic paints over this foiling experiment, so a perfect foiling job isn't required.
Here is a black painted canvas with silver metal foil already adhered to the bottom, and partially adhered to the top section. You can see the orange tissue paper that separates the foil sheets from on another - without which separations would be impossible! So it looks as though I've added a copper sheet on the top, when it's just the tissue paper one uses to carefully rub the foil into the adhesive surface below.
Another little experimental piece: Feathers is a small gessoed wood panel (4x6") that I used watercolor on, with the addition of Kosher salt to give a somewhat starry effect for the background. I then added several coats of spray varnish to it and allowed each layer to dry. Then I added some feathers and some metal flakes, using Golden's Mat Medium to attach them. I now know that 's not the proper adhesive, but it's my experiment, after all. the fragments stick just fine, as do the feathers. However, I did want more of the fragments added, so today I used the RIGHT adhesive and added some larger fragments (from the bag on the left). Now I need to paint the outer edges to match the rusty color of the piece.
By the way, I'm going to order Nancy Reyner's book, "Acrylic Illuminations" because I watched a few of her videos on YouTube and loved how she presented this medium, with all of it's intricacies!
So far, so good! It's been fun. Now it's time to add the silver metal foil to the fabric swatched panel and see what happens next!
