Distressing Verre Eglomise

Sometimes with Verre Eglomise you want the gold to look antiqued. If you want a perfectly clean look then I really recommend The Smith Tip (Dave Smith invented it) it's wonderful for giving you a very smooth wrinkle free surface to your leaf. But if you want something that looks a little worn then it's good to use an old fashioned gilder's tip and add depth to the gold with washes or clouding. This little fern really stands out because of the marks in the leaf. I tried it initially with a clean gold and it didn't look as striking. Of course you can always use steel wool to distress the leaf, but if you want it to be solid but marked in certain areas I think clouding is the way to go.

Double Gilt Empire Frame

This is a pretty frame I'm gilding for a client. He likes double gilt so I get to do lots of lovely burnishing, yay! It's the perfect kind of work for me at the moment as I am just about managing to get by on seven and a half brain cells (thank you twinnies!)

Gilded Butterfly Plants

I've adored these plants for many years. Surely no-one could resist a plant that looks so like a butterfly! When I began painting flowers for my first exhibition of Verre Eglomise, I drew these plants obsessively. I love that at night they close and seem to go to sleep and then they open in the morning and move towards the sun. I don't think these pictures do the gold justice. In reality the leaf is velvety to the touch and the gold has a softness that you only get when you gild something living.

Urushi Lacquer

This very pretty lacquer piece came in to the studio for a bit of restoration/conservation. Sometimes a client just can't afford to spend the money on lacquer. It breaks my heart really because it is such lovely work, but often the pieces aren't worth a great deal. Usually the white marks on lacquer (water bloom) are easy enough to get out. Well, easy if you know how! I conserved the lacquer where I could on this piece and restored the missing areas. It's a delicate balance between restoration and conservation on a piece like this, and often it's down to finances. Really, I think all Urushi should be restored in China and Japan by Urushi artists, but then I'd never get this kind of work so I'll keep quiet about that!

The marks on the right of the panel were partly conserved by removing the water bloom, and partly restored with pigment colours that matched the original. Not an easy thing really as Urushi black is built up in layers and it very different from the pigments traditionally used by English restorers. And Scottish ones for that matter.

The finished piece. The damage seen above is on the left of this photo. It's not bad. I'm pretty happy with it, although I'd still prefer to send it East for "proper" lacquer restoration.

Swan Sofa

These were my swans when they first came to me. The gesso was filthy and all the gold had been completely worn away. There is no paint on the swans, just original gesso and fresh gesso where there were cracks and breaks. The gesso has been waxed to protect it. I hope they never get as dirty again as they were when they first arrived!

And here they are now. I was very happy that the client was intent on keeping the burnish very high and not distressing the gold. I think ageing the fresh gold on this piece wouldn't have worked. The sofa's on its way to Moscow. I feel sad about that. I know it will be well loved by its new owner, but I fell passionately for these swans when I was working on them.

Gilding The Lily.

White gold and rose gold. 

Using Gilder's Tools

Holding a gilder's pad is a very personal thing. I'm so used to working with my pad that I really have to think about what I do when I describe the process to a student. You can never touch the knife blade, because any grease on it will mean the gold leaf will stick to it and be ruined. You can't touch the gold leaf with your fingers because it will disintegrate. You need to use water so you have a gilder's mop (a squirrel brush), but if you get water on your gilder's tip (another squirrel brush), it won't work. You do need grease on your gilder's tip though! The best way to master everything is to watch it being done. So much of working with gold is about how things feel and look. The pad will eventually become an extension of your arm, and the gold leaf will move in exactly the way you want it to.