From:
Norman Watts <Norman_Watts@zzzzzzz>
Date:
Thu, 18 Nov 2004 10:16:46 -0500
Subject:
water gilding
On Nov 18, 2004, at 9:34 AM, don dougan wrote:
Quoted text begins.You can't burnish oil size!
End of quote.
Don,
For sure, thats what I have read, and also that one is really smoothing
the gesso/bole under the gold in the case of a water-gilded surfaces.
Still, there seems to be so much alchemy that I thought I'd try it. It
is still curious why the gold on a dried oil base is susceptible to
physical damage and that on gesso/bole base is not (or less so). I've
read quite a bit on the web about the procedures, but the microscopic
physical interactions are still a bit mysterious to me, for example
Colin's observation that the water draws the leaf close to the gesso.
When I cut and chase a surface in slate with a TCT chisel finished on a
1200 grit diamond flat it seems pretty smooth to me. (Probably as
smooth as a clay bole?). Maybe the oil-based size undergoes a
microscopic crinkling once in contact with the gold? In a sense this is
pretty academic, and there's not much one can do about it either. But I
thought polishing leaf (or 2-3 layers of it) might be possible in the
presence of a lubricant (one that doesn't dissolve the size of course).
n
Norman Watts, Ph. D.
National Institutes of Health
50 South Drive, Rm. 1509
Bethesda, MD 20892-8025
Phone: (301) 402-3418
Fax: (301) 480-7629
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