Thursday, May 6, 2010

Preparing the first panel for gilding

I've paused my work on this portrait to begin the gold-leafing for it's background which helps establish the outline of the veil. Later on I'll be adding mother-of-pearl as a border.







9 comments:

martinealison said...

Travail absolument magnifique, magique... bravo et à très bientôt pour la suite...

Mona Diane Conner said...

Vous etes tres gentil Martine, merci.

Unknown said...

The work you do is truly amazing Mona - I am always in awe!!!

L.Holm said...

This is so extraordinary! I love the rich colors in her face and the flowers, and that scarf! wow!!! so beautiful.
Is the red base a glue? or is it a painted base that gets adhesive for the gilding?
Also - do you use the same glue for the mother of pearl?

Mona Diane Conner said...

Karen and Liz, thanks.

The red is clay bole which I'm applying in preparation to water-gild. It has rabbit skin glue among other ingredients.

I've never worked with mother-of-pearl before, so I'm still investigating the best glue for adhering it to the gold leaf.

Debra Keirce said...

I don't think I've ever seen you use mother of pearl before...This is going to be fun!

Dean Grey said...

Interesting to see this painted on what appears to be a wooden door/panel instead of a typical rectangular canvas.

This is going to look great. I know it!

-Dean

L.Holm said...

Thanks for the info...looking forward to seeing the next phase. Mother of pearl on gold leaf sounds tricky indeed!

Mona Diane Conner said...

Dean, this is actually painted on a traditional icon panel. Because I am doing a spiritual portrait I wanted to echo certain elements common to icon painting, such as the use of this type of panel and also water gilding. However, an icon and a spiritual painting are two distinctly different things.