Last week, I couldn't find the color and gold test strip, and while cleaning I found it in a pile. Ta Da!
Second time was a charm with the lettering. I managed to keep my paw out of the ink. The piece was lettered with Moon Palace Sumi ink using a 2mm. or maybe a 2.5 mm Brause nib. The lettering is Uncial commonly called Celtic.
Outlines for the Versal letters and the vine were done using a .01 Micron Pigma Pen.
After the ink was thoroughly dry and all pencil guidelines erased, it was time to gild. I had a bottle of Roberson's Gold Size. When I opened the jar, it had a faint whiff of vinegar so I wasn't sure if the bottle had gone off. It was suggested to me to try a test, if the gold stuck then it was probably okay to use. As a fall back, I would use Jerry's Pink Stuff as the base. (Jerry's Pink Stuff is no fail and has a shelf life of 10 years). Jerry's Pink Stuff is thin and flat where other bases like the Roberson's or Instacoll give the illusion of dimension. The square in the test sample worked.
My friend and colleague, Langley (BC, Canada) had gifted me with these small brushes used to paint designs for fingernail art. The bristles are stiff and give a nice, crisp line with the gilding goop.
So I was able to apply the gold size. It's a mustard yellow so you can see where to gild. I worked from right to left so I wouldn't put my hand in the goop. I also used some scrap paper to mask off the area to be gilded so the gold size wouldn't drip on areas where I didn't want it.
When the goop was thoroughly dry, which took forever because it was so humid, I was able to lay the gold. I had cut small squares of 23K gold leaf to minimize wastage
After the gold was applied, I used a soft, fluffy brush (a Crayola kid brush!) to remove the excess gold.
A second layer of gold was applied. No goop involved with this step as the gold will adhere to itself. Then the gold was burnished through a sheet of glassine using an agate burnisher.
After the gold leaf was applied, little dots in the vine design were painted with shell gold. The acrylic bridge allows me to rest my hand/wrist while I paint without, you in the cheap seats know the answer: putting my paw on the paper and wet paint.
