The Hummingbird Project

The first Fun with Acanthus Leaves project taught by Dan Mooney for the Sacred Art Workshop on Enders Island was a hummingbird.

The handouts Dan provided had a color image of the project and step by step illustrated instructions.

I have done gilding before, but there were so many fussy, little steps. Dan had a streamlined method that took the fear out of using gold.

First, we traced a hummingbird surrounded by acanthus leaves. The leaves would be painted and the hummingbird gilded using both a flat and raised technique. We used Jerry's Pink Stuff for the flat gilding around the edges of the hummingbird. Instacoll was carefully applied as the base for the raised gilding

After the Instacoll was thoroughly dry (approximately 45 min. Jerry's Pink Stuff only took 10 or min. to dry) 24 karat patent gold was applied. The excess gold was brushed off and the gold was tooled (patterns or dots were pressed into the gold using an awl and embossing tool.

While waiting for the Instacoll to dry we mixed our watercolors. I chose a light blue and a teal. After the gold was applied, the acanthus leaves were painted and white dots added. Oh, and as if the gold didn't have enough bling, a Swarovski crystal was added to the eye.

Ta-da! The first project completed over 2 days