Simple Illumination - Adding gold to your artwork

1. Introduction: 2. About this class: you know, im welcome to my skill share toe Simple illumination one. Now I say part one because there are lots off different ways off illuminating or gilding your artwork. Some of them will give you a better shine than others. But those ways are more complicated, and they require more tools and materials. So this CASS is really what I consider to be the simplest way of adding gold elements to your artwork. I'm Theodore. I'm a Somerset based artist on silversmith living in a rural part of England. Recently, I've been using a lot of gold in my artwork. It really adds depth on interest to a piece of work. So this is the piece that I have created for the past week, Squinting in light there. See? Um So I have got a template for you for the design on you can if you want to. You can just copy and only exactly what I do. I am able to change the initial in the middle Name doesn t um but yeah, feel free to follow along and do exactly what idea. Or if you want Teoh break free and do your own design. And that's wonderful. tea. So although you can follow along on, do exactly what I did, this class isn't so much about painting. It's more about teaching you how to use gold elements in your work. So I will talk you through what I do with painting. But it's not meant to be a painting class. It's an illumination. You don't have to have any prior experience. It's aimed complete beginners, people who've never done any elimination or gilding before. On as I said, it's what I consider to be the easiest way off adding gold. If you're worried about costs and thinking a gold, it's gonna be really expensive. Don't worry. The example piece that I create in the cars uses probably about no, we get some, but probably about £2 worth of gold on it. The sheets also thin. One book of gold is going Teoh last you a long time. I've created a Pinterest board for the group because I think it's always nice toc what other people are doing and to get a bit of inspiration. So before or after or during the class, feel free to have a look at that. The link to it is in the project section. Andi, I'm not very good on the technical side of it, but I think he might be able to pin ideas. To be wanted will start your own board. But it's just nice to see what other artists doing and to give you some ideas so that once you've taken the class and you're moving forward with your own artwork, you have another bit of inspiration. So I've broken the class down into sections, so I'll start off talking you through the tools and materials. Then I'll show you how to transfer the design onto the paper. I'll talk you through how I painted it. Although it's not an in depth painting class I have will show you and talk to you about how I painted the design using watercolors, gouache. And then I show you how to put all the little gold dots on and then finally had to add a gold initial. I mean, I've used in initial. You could put a word or something of your own choosing if you want. So by the end of the cars, I hope that you will feel confident Teoh be able to move forward on add gold elements to your own artwork. I love it. If you share your project with me, share what you make in the class and any future projects that you make. You can always add images off your work to project section on their Your fellow classmates will be able to see and comment and like and like just give you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. So it's always worth doing that. Well, you, comtech may on my social media. I'm most active on Instagram. You can find me at Theodora Dr Gould. So please do share your creations on Instagram on Tag Me so that I can see it comment on it as well. So I'm really excited that you're here, and I really think if you're an artist, you're going to love adding gold elements to your paintings. Let's get going. Let's talk about tools, materials 3. Tools & Materials: So just a quick night on tills materials. I'm going to be using trench 3.5 carat. Really gold. Um, there are gold alternatives that you can use that the advantage of using real gold is that it will never tarnish. Won't react with the air. Um, I didn't always keep its color. Uh, I will say nothing ever really gives quite the same shine or depth of color as really gold . Be painting in a mixture of watercolors gouache. You can paint what I made him you want. But if you're using something that is kind of a bit sticky, like oil paint or critic, when you come to the parents in stage, which will be explained later, you're gonna have to really make sure they get lots of Tell Comparator on it. Because if there's any moisture in the paint or any tackiness, gold will stick to that rather into gold size. So I'm gonna talk you through some of the materials needed. I think I mentioned everything except possibly masking tape to take my So have you looking a project section. Find a file called template, which you can print out, which will give you this design. Feel free to follow along with mine. Or if you want to make something of your own, that's fine as well. We didn't need that. You are going to need a couple of pencils, one that's quite soft for scribbling on the back of your design on. And then you could use that one. I like to use these little so you can draw onto your template. Transfer your design onto your paper. So this is the paper that I'm using. Its hot pressed watercolor paper thing about it is that it's quite smooth. Uh, is who, basically, when you put gold onto something, whatever undulations or whatever shape you have underneath it is gonna come through on the gold to the flatter your paper Better. And also, I'm painting the design in a mixture of watercolors, gouache, watercolor papers. Good for that. So once you've got your design on, you're gonna want to have your pencil lines a softness possible just because you don't want them showing through the water color and you don't want them sticking out the edges of your goal to say I use putty rubber for that which is just one of these needle rubbers, which you can then get around softened order lines with. Then we're gonna move onto painting the design se. I have got color pains, gouache paints. You need a palette. I like to use a ceramic plate, just a kitchen plate, because I find that the paint sort of pulled strangely on those plastic parrots and the metal pallets that water colors and things come with. But I find a ceramic plate works really well. I am your You might want a couple of brushes for doing your painting. It depends how you what style of painting it. But if you're copying me, I just using these rounded rushes, they've got a nice point to them. You're going to need job water, his kitchen roll, just dabbing your brush. Um, then, once your design is completely dry, we're going to use pounce. This is Martin rag masking tape. And tell Comparator I will show you in a video how to make one of these. They're quite useful. If you're going to do more building, then we'll move on to putting our gold size gold blue. Sometimes I'll say size. Sometimes I'll say blue means the same thing onto the page. So in the video, I use this stuff called Wonder Size. Um, but you can use any a critic size. It needs to be a critic. You're doing it on paper because obviously paper, it's flexible. So your gold side has got to be able to move. If you're doing traditional building, you'd be doing it onto a hard surface that isn't going to bend to, say, use different materials that that this project on a critic gold size, you're going to want Teoh. Add a little color to that say in see where you're going on page, because that is clear and sometimes it could just be a little bit difficult to see what you mean S o. I mix a little bit of yellow gouache paint into it. You can use gouache, or you could use watercolor. Any reason I'm using goulash is because I have it achieved. It's easy to do. Gonna need some sort of little container to put your gold size and your paint into I just use an egg cup. Um, a little bit of cling film, which will just stop it from drying out in between phases. Um, a brush that isn't kind of your best brush, but something that you can use to mix your goulash paint into your gold size on your going to need another brush for applying girl size. And again, I'm just using one of these round brushes, which again has got a nice point to it. Then you can have to wait a while. Let gold size dry, and then we get to the radio from that which is gold needs gold. I'm using this, uh, 23 a half carriage transfer Lee. So traditional gold leaf often comes loose. It can be quite difficult to work with, but transfer leaf comes. It's stuck onto this thin piece of paper is much more manageable to use. You don't need to have a lot of their traditional building tools like Gildas pad and build a tip of a knife. Um, and you don't have to learn how to work with the gold is it's a really nice, quick, easy way of getting really gold onto your book. 4. Transfering The Design: you might want to just cut down your template. Say that you'll be able to place it. Fremont on paper, more easily sweet, scribbled on the back of it. I just need something. Hold use back. You'll, um What kind of bad? I just got bored I'm going to use. And just with bog standard pencil just scribbled on the back printout for whatever design you got, try not to rub this part of your hand over your scribble because you're going to pick up the pencil there and may end up transferring it to your final design. Make sure you've got all the little bits. Take a scribbled on template. Did you wash kind of paper? Just position it on the paper where you would like it. You might find it useful just to stick a couple of corners with small bit of masking tape. Because we're going to draw over this. We don't want it to move when we're halfway through drawing three irritation when that happens. And then I'm just going todo over on around each with the lines. Sure not to miss any trying to press too hard. Does that make a dent in your paper? if you change your mind about where you want something, I always have a dent. I just need to press hard enough that design will come through. You don't want to watch me go away around this. Say I will. On camera. I will come back in a minute once I've been rounded. When it's transferred onto page, you're not sure if you've seen all the way around, she can sort of have a look at it at an angle in the light and you'll be able to see your pencil lines. You can't really see it on the camera, but just double checking that I've seen all the way around everything I think I have. Then you can just gently removes masking tape just from a bit from one corner to begin with , Unit back very faintly. Where are being So my lines are very faint. In fact, I can hardly see them. And with hindsight, maybe I should have used heavier, softer pencil on the back of the tracing. But I'm just going to go over. This happens to you. Just go over very lightly sketch out where your lines are. Get around the whole thing like this hopefully be able to see yours of it better than I can see mine. So I will come back once I've being all the way around and shave next up. I've got my design all drawn are going to take my party rubber, Just soften my lines. Just dabbing on this. Just say that when we paint on lots of hard lines showing the drama quite softly. It just wouldn't be able to see enough so that I can I know where to put the paint but without lion showing, Because once there, what kind of goes on on top of the peasants, will you be able to rub it out? 5. Painting the Design: start using my water colors. I've got my ceramic plate, my brush, lots of water. Piece of kitchen roll. But like paint, I just have to remove the things of scientists that I could get. Comfy painting position? No. Feel free to copy me if you want to. Uh, I'm just going to start painting. You may have your own painting style. You may want to do in a loose style something very realistic, Really. This is just for demonstration purposes. It's meant to be about gold rather than with paint. It's just game stuff into. I'm gonna paint mining fairly least style. And I have a bit of read in my leaves. So while it's still wet just going to Dr Bread in there Bleedin to rest. Kind of made Dolph Green just here. That it's amusing. Quite thin wash on the leaves. First of all, living it pulled with basic belief joint system. - I'm gonna leave all these darts. Yes, they are. These bits here because I think that they're gonna let nice gold. Um, aging. These very type things red. I'm just gonna carry on. Went my way around painting for them. We'll move on to the next stage. Yeah, So I'm leaving a small area of these Berries paper showing through like that just to make it look a little bit like lighters on them. So I'm putting Tana phone and then drawing it back with water. Do not go around with dark color on the edges. I don't know. No six side to that light touch. Common. Still wet. - So that's the first case of color on one section. Then this pattern, if you've noticed, but it repeats four times. Um So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna carry on paint the rest of it in the same way I painted that. And then we'll have a look at whether we need to put more detail in, or maybe an hour applying on. Just have a bit of a play with it. So I got first wash on the design except for a little dotty vets. But you're gonna be gold. I'm just going to get around and add a little bit more detail with Cem gouache paint. So I am making this up to go along. This painting is really just so that I have something to show you and to put gold onto. What kind of talking through? I'm doing a subject mixed colors. So I think I just need a little bit more definition with the final brushing Just going around. Choose not doing a solid line pain and like that? No, after something realistic, just off to something that aesthetically pleasing when we put gold on it, just make it look even pressure. Just tidying up the stems. - Solid line. But it just defines leaves. Do something a bit more with these Berries. I just need a little bit more definition. I'm just going in with Pake red. - I'm just gonna put a little It took the end of each one to make it look a little bit more like Berries. Not sure what this plant is. It's just something made up in my head. So I'll go around the whole design like that. Then I think we'll be ready to put some gold on it. So I painted all the parts that I want to paint. Next, we can start applying some gold, too. Little adults. Um and then we're going to print out an initial trace it into the middle on do the initial in gold as well 6. Making a pounce: So I want to show you how to make pounce I've got, but I call mutton rag or decorators cloth, which you get them. Any hardware store? I'll see if I can find an online link for it. Um, talking powder, a bit masking tape and some scissors. So cut yourself peace. Oh, not Greg. Sorry about the opening camera. Isis is orbiting blood. So because mutton rag decorators cloth is this kind of cheap there that's doubled able, ready, going to just fold it back over itself again to the fall s. This isn't an exact science. And then put your hand underneath and with this part, put that over your hand. Make a kind of well, in the middle, hotel compatible. Fill your well, shake it down every now and again. This isn't something you need to do very often. The parents that I use in the video I've actually had for years more. So now I got my hand cut like that underneath it. Now you want to try and gather up these bits? Keep that give it a twist, and then I'd like to just take one layer of mutton rag. Could possibly reference a bit more and put it over like that. Twist it again, then get your masking tape. So it's good and tight. That's a fairly hard well, now you can see I can squash maneuver the end. Breath it, Titus. He can the round, uh, keep rapping. He's got something nice, insecure. They have it. £1. It takes a little while for the compared to start coming through, but you can just see it starting to come out onto my board. Sorry, I've got the camera bulbs shaking every time I did, and that's your parents. 7. Adding Gold Size: so I got a pot of water, but a kitchen roll, Some yellow anchor. I've got gouache. You can use water color. We'll go. Ash, I've got a little pot of my acrylic. Um, gold size Amusing the Wonder size one on an egg cup. Now, with your brush, we're gonna mix a bit of color into our size, so that will be able to see where we're going on the page. But if you don't wet your brush sufficiently first than the gold blue, gold size will start to creep up into this part of the brush. And it's actually happened this one already, and it start to get really stiff, and it kind of spoils your brush. Say, give your brush a really good soak in the water first. So I'm just going t Christian around in there a bit, and I'm gonna leave it sitting for a few minutes. Andan come back and show you how to put the color into the gold size. So brush being sitting in the water for a few minutes, just gonna take it out and get all the excess water off drive from There just means now that some water will have crept up into there and were less likely to get the blue gold science gang up. So with the gold size, you any really want to use as much as you think you're going to need your picture because you will never pour it back into the bottle to pour a small amount into your cup, it's better to use a little less. You can always make a little bit more of its very quick, very easy to do about one side. Take a little bit of your goulash or your water color. Squeeze in the throat onto your end of your brush. Don't need much, and then just put it into the bottom and then just gently move it around. You don't want Teoh Sterritt vigorously. You want to get a few air bubbles and your gold size as possible. Just keep agitating it until you go on. Even mix of color. We will inevitably get some air bubbles. Just a few of the better. - Just keep mixing until you think you've got it all mixed in, and you don't have any big blobs of color pigments sitting in the bottom. The excess of the brush give your brush wash that is ready to use. So I've got another brush with fine tip on on the same principles. When we mixed our gold size, just one Teoh wet this brush sufficiently. Don't squash it down onto the bottom because you want to try and keep that point. But just ensure that the water is going to soak up into this part of the brush and just leave it sitting there for a couple of minutes. After a couple of minutes, take a brush and again take the excess water off your brush. And we just can't do a few little test pieces just so that you can understand what it feels like to use that gold size. Coakley se. We've got some dots on our page, so dip your brush into your gold size again. Don't stir it around. Just want to dip it in. Put it out with a kind of love on the end. Then just place it on your paper like that. So you're not rushing, just making adult, then have a go at making big adopt dot and then you can pull that gold size around and then dip your brush. Add your trip that's on the end of your brush. Add that to what you've already got there. Call that around. Look made little smiley face. Get making a biggest circle and then months have gotten outline like that. You can fill it. You can drag you gold sides in from the outside. So rather than painting a circle, doing that you see might not be upset very clearly on the camera. Try and zoom in that because he got a thin area on the outside and then this thick a bit doesn't quite go up to it. Se who was try and no size wet drop into your wet size. Drag that around. So have a play. Makes him different shapes. Just get a feel for it before you. I start on your painting. You can always tidy up the edges a bit, a bit more size on your brush dipped in and around the edge. You might want to have a gay at doing some sharp for shapes and maybe have a go at a triangle. Use signs to give you nice sharp point again. Definite shape. Go wavy lines keep dipping, adding that edges are gonna start drying. So if you're doing a bigger area. Me too. Just pay attention, Teoh. Uh, line you did longest to go. That makes sense. Just start adding a little more gold size to those areas I'm tracking in. So I'm not really touching the paper. Just touching the blue with the tip of the brush again. Make sure you give you brush. Wash sometimes. Find it useful just gentle. Do this. You get a bit of ugly that's dried on the bristles. And keep this to one side because you can use this as your test piece. So we're gonna go and start putting the size onto our painting, but we don't want to put the gold onto it until it's completely dry. So rather than testing, are painting to see if it's drawing, spoiling it. Um, we contest this. So I got my painting on. I've got my pounds. Now. This step may not be completely necessary, but what I'm going to do is get my pants and just pounce it onto the design and then give it a rub. So we're going to apply our gold size to all these little dots. Um, and what the towel comparative does. Is it will stop your gold from sticking anywhere, but we've put gold size. I could say I don't know that it's completely necessary, but it's best to be safe than sorry. It's very irritating to ruin a painting by having gold stuck in places you don't want. Then in the same way you did on your practice peace two gold size on your brush. Get a bit on the end of your brush and then dr where you want to go drag sighs rather than brushing on the paper. Don't even think I'm touching the paper at this point. And what you'll get is, um, nice rounded dome to your gold size and that will stay when it dries. When you put your gold on, your gold will have a kind of raised effect. Careful not to get drips of water when you edge of your brush because they can just run down se just dry off that your brush keep going. So I'm just gonna keep working my way around the design. Dale, these adults every night again, your brush wash just doesn't come to clog. Still easy to work with, but I'm just be aware I'm resting my hand on their moment. Yes, I worked my way around. I'm obviously going to have gold size on there. So just placing your hand, say that, you know, squashing your gold size. - And so I'm gonna leave these pieces here to dry. Um, some of the gold size is quite thick, so I am going to give it a couple of hours. Um, obviously, don't touch it. Don't rub it. Just leave it sitting. Girlfriend, do something else. I'm gonna gonna walk. We'll see what it's like when I come back. Your extra gold size that you've got left. Take a little piece of cling film Coulson tin foil on a place of your cup and you can put this in the fridge on. This will be good to use when we come to do an initial in the middle. 8. Gilding part 1: So it's been a couple of hours and I can see that the color of these has changed slightly. Have a look at sea test strip sweet that inside Because this is just a test strip touching with a finger and it feels Chechi it is not leaving a fingerprint. Try one of the pretty thick areas. Sort of feels I'm going to use a little bit gold on it just to make sure, taking my transfer leaves facing it gold size and then with my stiff brush, I think. Okay, just a little thicker areas to make sure. Yeah, ready to put some gold on a painting? So I'm gonna take a fresh piece of gold you can use. You've done building before and you have some transfer Lee, if you can use your scrappy runs. But this is kind of what you're little gold leaf sheets are going to end up looking like you won't get every gold off keeping these a sheet. Transfer me it down with a stiff brush. It might not go away around, so just take a Russian presage around like that Too hard. Just enough. Say that gold. There's a for all of the gold sides. If you do this and you find that your paper, it's sticking to gold size fit that it means it's not quite drying up, so it's leaving a bit longer. Nice thing about this gold size is that can actually need it for a couple of days. It would still be techie enough to make gold stick to it, so it's better to leave it a bit longer. Round a bit less, believe it a bit less. You can just mess up the whole thing when you have to stop a single room gold leaf starts to get a bit there only more paper showing through. Try not to stick the paper onto the gold size. You can sometimes make it lose its tackiness. Little bits than the gold doesn't step quite so well or it can your gold size up so you can see we're starting. Teoh. Get a nice effect with gold, so I'm gonna get all the way around. Come back to you have done so once you being all the way around and you think you've got as much as you can, you can take your she to go paper. I just gently rub it with gold areas, and then I need loose little fits for areas that haven't bean covered with girls. More like to get a little bit gold size on a little bit of gold on them. Two fingers. You have it unless I said save these sheets because I will do another class on. I will show you a good way off using up the rest of your gold. Now you find you got lots of stray little bits, so take another soft brush. Just rush around. Teaching adults. Do you have any spits? They're making sure your hands drawing clean. Just very gently brush off any excess show like game to see a gold catchers. Light beauty just enhances the painting. It illuminates it, but I think we need to add a little something in the middle. So on initial would be a good thing, because then it personalizes it for you and also teaches you a little bit more. Gives a bit more practice at getting those nice, sharp points and edges with your gold size 9. Adding an initial: So I've just printed out a font that I like and I just on. So I used being Max or abused pages document on printed out a few tees in different sizes cause I wasn't sure which size would fit in the middle of my reef. Now you can't see it on camera, but if I hold it up to the window, I can see Hold it up to the light. I can see that this t fits quite nicely in the middle here, Se Teoh take a little bit off tracing paper and always liked stick things down just because horrible habit leaving them. And then my parents are any pencil do trace over tea. I just want the outline. I'm not gonna bother with these inside bits. I just like, shape this one so you can pick a font that you like word. Challenge yourself now because this is symmetrical. I could just turn it over onto my paper and draw on the back with my bog standard pencil scribble on the back of it. Going for a slightly softer pencil. This times actually be able to see what traced on inside painting position t where I like it. The advantage of using tracing paper not just drawing on the back of printer paper is that I can see where it sits within the design. There may be careful not to stick. We paid for down onto your gold. You can help it. Just stick that edge. I liked me. Go back over the lines, so transfers through to my painting Carefully lift up has gone gold that I was taking a golden. Now if I wanted to, I could draw back over that. But actually, I think it's finest It is. I can see enough. I might just take my pussy rubber. Just start from the lines a little bit because it's quite hard. Teoh. We can't really rub out around gold just end up taking golden. I just want a very faint line to follow. Don't This morning we believe so much that I can just so I could still see where today and then I'm gonna take my parents again. Pounce everything but gentle blow when it's worth mentioning when you give it a gentle blow , try not to spit on it. I know from experience, and then we're gonna put our gold size. Want to hear the same way we did onto our test piece and onto adults. So I've got my gold size out of the fridge and you can see it's slightly separated, some of the color of sunk down to the bottom, so I could very gently smell it around. Don't forget to wet your brush again that gets sick, pre soaked mine dry off the excess, and then you can use your brush just to gently mix that back up again about creating any air bubbles. But then I'm going to start applying gold size onto T. Remember to drag your size, not paint. The paper may feel page around whatever is easiest, you fangled wax dipping and then adding your size to the already wet decides when you're doing this. Allow yourself some time, so don't start it. If you think you've got somebody coming around to you something, you're gonna have to get up and leave it for No, you got enough time to Finn it while it's full still wet, joining line again . I just have to wait for that to draw again, wash my brushes and then we'll come back and put some gold on it. it's just gonna test it very gently. Touch it. I didn't dio test piece with this. Probably would have been a good idea to do that, think, but that is OK, so same way we did adults taking go just certainly to start with just very gently until you're sure that it's drying. Lets you sure it's dry, taking care that I get etches and then take my sheet again, just gently area. Come with my soft brush around, tidy up loose pets just with a soft cloth. You just trouble any excess when it's done. 10. Final Thoughts: So I hope you've enjoyed the class. And I hope you have something that either resembles this or something of your own design that you love love it on. But you feel proud off on you would want to have a wall or you want to give to a friend. You have any questions? Please leave a message in the comments box when I would come back to you as soon as I can. I'm here to help you. Or if you can think of any ways in which I could improve the trials or anything that maybe I haven't explained clearly enough or anything that could be simplified. Then again, please do let me know. Well, feedback smoke. So I love you to share your finished project with me. You put it in the project section. You can upload a facial there. You're able to put some texts that tell me how you got on or you can share your creations with me on social media. As I said, I'm theodora dot gold on instagram and I would love to see your creations. So thank you so much for watching. I really hope you've enjoyed it. I hope you found it useful and inspiring. I as I said the beginning. I am planning on doing more classes on illumination, so I will go on and do some slightly more complicated techniques on somewhere. You paint onto the gold rather than painting and then adding gold paintings with gold background on then some techniques where you use traditional building tools and loosely so , if you do want to know about any future Cassis, then up above, there's a follow button. If you kick that the next time I go to the center, Thanks for watching.