A Little Console and Mirror.

I was scared yesterday watching this mirror and console being taken out of my studio. The top of it is completely new and the reason it needed a new top was at some point it had been broken off when it was being moved. It took 4 men to put it up and I was anxiously hovering in the background with a book of gold leaf and a brush just in case something went wrong. But everything went well and now it looks beautiful.

New Species Found: A Gold Spotted Ladybird

This is a freshly gilded section of a consol, and a freshly gilded ladybird! It flew onto the consol when the gold was still wet and got covered in speckles of gold leaf. I really wish I'd had a decent camera with me because it looked incredible. When it flew off (leaving the tiniest ladybird footprints all along the leaf) it sparkled in the light.

Classes for 2011

I'll be organising classes for 2011 soon. If you'd like to be added to the mailing list, email me at londongilding@gmail.com I mostly taught glass gilding classes in December, but here's a pic from an individual class I did where we were gilding lilies. This year I'll be concentrating again on teaching glass gilding but if anyone's interested in gilding flowers or fruit let me know and I can add that into the class.

Gilding Walnuts and Rose Leaves

Have been getting some interesting enquiries since doing Kirstie's Home Made Home. Someone wanting to gild walnuts (lovely idea) and also rose leaves.

Here's a great tip I learnt from my very creative grandmother who has a beautiful rose garden. She decorates her cakes with chocolate rose leaves. She dips leaves in chocolate and then carefully peels the leaves away. She taught me how to do it when I was a child and I loved it. If you use edible gold and press the gold gently into the chocolate it looks wonderful. You can use gelatine on a brush as a glue for the gold, or if you're very nimble fingered you can press the gold into the chocolate when it's still soft.

Faux Lapis

This is faux lapis. I love doing effects like this. I hate doing walls in faux finishes, because it's incredibly boring to do it for hours and hours and get a stiff neck, but I really enjoy doing it on furniture. The little flashes of colour are specks of gold. You drop them into the drying varnish and they look gorgeous.

Christmas Drinks

Here's a taster of what you can do with gold for Christmas. Edible gold in champagne is so much fun! And as gold is known for it's medicinal properties you don't have to feel guilty having an extra glass ;-)

Gilding Glass with Kirstie Allsopp

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kirsties-homemade-home/4od#3135743

Here I am with the lovely Kirstie Allsopp teaching her reverse painting and verre eglomise. She did a fine job. As you can see from her panel, the easiest kinds of designs to copy are bold and fluid. Bright colours look incredible with the gold backing. Silver leaf is also wonderful to work with. Colours like prussian blue and vermilion really complement silver and white gold.