Gold Gilding Techniques

[fuchsiaprincess]

Thanks a lot, Marie! May I ask, where do you come up with your beautiful designs? I copied mine from a book :embarrassed_smile:

[MarieD]

Hi Soki...I like to browse through 'alphabets' and designs that are available on the internet. Is is surprising the variations that occur within one style of hand. Take for instance 'Gothic', a hand I really like, I would find an A to Z but if I came across a letter that I didn't particularly like the style of, say 'C', I would disregard that one and browse further until I found one that I did like and then put together my own A to Z of all the letters I liked.

 

The gilded 'D' I did was a variation of a design from a book I have by Marie Lynskey who is a fabulous calligrapher.I was so impressed by her 'diapered' backgrounds that I wanted to try out one for myself. I have learned so much from this book, for anyone who is interested it is 'A beginners art guide to illuminated lettering' by Marie Lynskey.

 

The design below I designed myself, hope you like it....I tried to keep an Irish feel to this by incorporating the knotwork and the colours from the Irish flag.

 

[fuchsiaprincess]

Hi Marie,

 

Thank you so much for continuing to share your beautiful work with us. And thank you so much for sharing your secret to your inspiration!

 

I've completed my project, which I am going to gift to my priest.

 

I've learnt one valuable lesson today - never try to paint after having a cup of coffee :roflmho: My hand was shaking a wee bit!

 

Warm regards,

Soki

 

http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y331/fuchsiaprincess/FrMartinIllumination.jpg

[MarieD]

Hi Soki....what a lovely job you did.... :clap1: your priest should feel very proud to own such a lovely gift.

 

Can you give us some info on the size of your work, paper, etc, thats a very intricate knotwork border.

 

You didn't have a wee drop of whisky in that coffee did you if you had shaky hands after.

[happyhaley]

Lovely job MarieD!

 

~Haley

[fuchsiaprincess]

Hi Soki....what a lovely job you did.... :clap1: your priest should feel very proud to own such a lovely gift.

 

Can you give us some info on the size of your work, paper, etc, thats a very intricate knotwork border.

 

You didn't have a wee drop of whisky in that coffee did you if you had shaky hands after.

 

Hi Marie,

 

No, no whisky in the coffee. Perhaps that's why my hand was shaking :roflmho:

 

The paper I used was Arches 100% cotton watercolor (300gsm) in A4 size. The raised gilding was done using Instacoll and gold leaf. Everything else was painted using Winsor and Newton gouche.

 

The border was a tad complex, mainly because I couldn't get the outline fine enough. The gilding was fun. The black lettering was tough as there wasn't any room for error!

 

What sort of paper do you use for your gilding? And what size? Any tips on how to get smooth, flowing, fine lines?

 

Warm regards,

Soki

[caliken]

This is a really interesting thread with lots of fine examples of illumination.

 

I was interested to see that nobody has suggested the use of shell gold as a supplement to gold leaf.

 

Shell Gold is a composition of powdered gold or gold leaf, ground up with Gum Arabic and set as a tablet in a shell or a shell shaped container. In terms of quality, it's exactly the same as gold leaf and can be applied with a soft brush and a little water. It's ideal for gilding fine lines where the application of gold leaf would be very difficult.

 

I use it in conjuction with gold leaf where appropriate. It's very easy to apply and can be burnished to an extent.

 

It's expensive, but a small tablet, as shown here, can last a long time as it's used sparingly being totally opaque as is Gold Leaf.

 

caliken

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/shellgold3138.jpg

Edited January 10, 2011 by caliken

[fuchsiaprincess]

Hi Ken,

 

Thanks for your contribution. I do have a small tablet of shell gold, but have yet to use it. How does it compare to gold gouache?

 

Regards,

Soki

[penguina]

Hi, if any-one is interested, there is a good seller of sheet gold on ebay. He is selling 500 sheets of gold for about $12.00.

 

I have bought both gold and silver sheets from this seller from Thailand before, to use in my drawings, so I can say that his gold sheets are very good value. Well worth it, if you want to experiment with this beautiful stuff. :cloud9

 

PS: and it's really 24 carat, real gold!

Edited January 11, 2011 by penguina

[caliken]

Hi Ken,

 

Thanks for your contribution. I do have a small tablet of shell gold, but have yet to use it. How does it compare to gold gouache?

 

Regards,

Soki

 

Soki,

 

IMO Gold gouache, gold ink etc. all look great and do a fine job........until you see them next to the real thing!

 

Shell gold is applied in exactly the same way as gouach or watercolour, with a small, soft brush.

 

Ken

[fuchsiaprincess]

Thank you very much, Ken! I shall use shell gold for my next project. Can you still use shell gold for raised gilding?

 

Regards,

Soki

[caliken]

I shall use shell gold for my next project. Can you still use shell gold for raised gilding?

 

Soki,

 

I don't know how effective this would be. I use shell gold for very fine details only and I'm not sure if it would benefit from being raised.

 

If I did the body of the letter 'A' in raised gold leaf as drawn by Marie earlier in this thread, I would probably do the lines of foliage in flat shell gold.

 

Ken

[MarieD]

This is a really interesting thread with lots of fine examples of illumination.

 

I was interested to see that nobody has suggested the use of shell gold as a supplement to gold leaf.

 

Shell Gold is a composition of powdered gold or gold leaf, ground up with Gum Arabic and set as a tablet in a shell or a shell shaped container. In terms of quality, it's exactly the same as gold leaf and can be applied with a soft brush and a little water. It's ideal for gilding fine lines where the application of gold leaf would be very difficult.

 

I use it in conjuction with gold leaf where appropriate. It's very easy to apply and can be burnished to an extent.

 

It's expensive, but a small tablet, as shown here, can last a long time as it's used sparingly being totally opaque as is Gold Leaf.

 

caliken

 

 

 

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd289/caliken_2007/shellgold3138.jpg

 

 

Thanks for the info on the 'shell gold' Ken. I had heard of this before but never really given it any thought because I imagined it would be hard to apply,until you gave us all the info above. Sounds great for small detailed work.I checked out Cornellisen of London's web site and found that there are 4 shades of gold,4 shades of silverish colours, 1 of lapis lazuli

and 1 of malachite. They all look so beautiful....alas as you say a little expensive at £32 for a 1/4 pan.

Can you brush the 'shell gold' onto a dip nib to do extra fine detail or copperplate writing?

[caliken]

They all look so beautiful....alas as you say a little expensive at £32 for a 1/4 pan.

Can you brush the 'shell gold' onto a dip nib to do extra fine detail or copperplate writing?

 

Marie,

 

It's never occured to me to try this...probably because of the prohibitive cost!

However, I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't work.

If you do decide to try it with a dip nib, please post the results!

 

Ken

[fuchsiaprincess]

Finally - something using shell gold :

http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y331/fuchsiaprincess/IMGP2307.jpg

[smk]

Very nicely done Soki. Pictures and scans don't capture the full depth of the gold so I'm sure this is even better in real life.

 

S.

[texaspenman]

No why did you go and do that.... I spent more money on Calligraphy! Thanks for the inspiration to start practicing illumination.

[fuchsiaprincess]

Very nicely done Soki. Pictures and scans don't capture the full depth of the gold so I'm sure this is even better in real life.

 

S.

 

Thank you Salman! You're correct, the gold is must nicer in real life. However, after I've painted over it, it has lost a bit of its shine

 

Warm regards,

Soki

[fuchsiaprincess]

No why did you go and do that.... I spent more money on Calligraphy! Thanks for the inspiration to start practicing illumination.

 

Payback for making me buy all those Latin books :roflmho:

[Carol Anderson]

Everyone, thank you for all of your expertise. I had a course on illuminating initial caps decades ago. Of course that was before gold hit $1,500 an ounce as it just did--a new high! I would appreciate more detail on the diapering effect. I tried to even Google it, but you can imagine what came up--nothing that had anything to do with art. Even Googling "diaper art" wouldn't get me near the topic.

 

Carol.