Sunday, March 29, 2015

Shell Gold

Wednesday afternoon, Valerie taught us the recipe to make shell gold. This involves mixing 23 karat  loose gold (a little more expensive than patent gold and requiring special tools to cut and apply the gold) with gum arabic (a binder found in candy), and a tiny bit of water. The mixture is mixed in a ceramic bowl by finger in a time honored process (i.e. time consuming) The gold precipitates to the bottom of the bowl and the water is decanted or siphoned off. When the remaining water evaporates (after several hours or overnight) the gold can be used as paint. It's called shell gold because Medieval artists poured it into a small shell for storage.

The shell gold can be used alone or can complement the gold leaf as seen in my incomplete White Vine monogram. The "C" was gilded with the patent gold while the "J" was painted with the shell gold. Shell gold is not as shiny, but gives a beautiful contrast when paired with gold leaf.

23 karat patent gold, shell gold, Pigma pen on Diploma Parchment.

7 comments:

  1. I'm guessing this isn't finished, but I love it like this. Kinda like the lettering equivalent of your ghost tiger and dragon.

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    1. I like the look of it, too, but color will make the gold pop.

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  2. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. Sounds expensive but interesting. Can’t wait to see what color you add!

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    1. Trying to decide between the traditional blue, green, red or blue, purple, green

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    2. If you haven't decided yet, I vote for purple

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