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| 'Gilded Afternoon' 11x14 pastel ©Karen Margulis available $155 |
I am enjoying some bling this week. The other day I rediscovered my precious Henri Roche metallic pastels and it whet my appetite for more go the shiny stuff! I remembered I had a jar of gold powder form Schmincke. It is called Tro-Col-Bronze. It is a metallic powder with a dry gouache base. I bought it several years ago because it was beautiful but I had no idea what to do with it!
I tried sprinkling it into clear gesso but it lost its shiny glow and turned yellowish. That was not successful. For this painting experiment I sprayed some workable fixative where I wanted some golden shine. I then loaded a small brush with the gold powder and tapped it over the fixative.
That worked well! In fact it worked so well that I ended up with more gold than I wanted for this painting. I ended up adding more pastel to tone down the gold but I will keep this technique in mind for future subjects where I want more gold.
Note: I am reading the directions on the jar which recommends adding to water to obtain the brilliant bronze color. Hmmm now that gives me some ideas! How would you use this shiny gold powder?
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| A UFO from the pile on Multimedia artboard |
Today's painting actually began life as a discarded workshop painting. It was the start of a raven on Multimedia artboard. I did an alcohol wash to tone the board and started over with my tree.
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| adding some rubbing alcohol to wash in the pastel |
Below is the painting after adding the gold powder. It was too much for one spot but look how shiny it is!
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| Adding the gold powder in the sunlit parts of the painting |
1 comment:
I love this! I wanted to get some Tro-Cal years ago but Blick doesn't carry it any more. That was frustrating. I meant to use it with pastels to do gold washes over pastel primer, sprinkle it in various pastel areas and press it in, or use it in my medieval illuminations as a gold wash or ink. Lots of uses for the stuff and it came in a bright gold as well as a bronze. Now I have other gold water based things but the powder would still be useful in pasteling!
I'd just use it as a dry wash rather than a wet one unless going over the ground. I found out about the effect of clear primer on metallic anything with the gold acrylic underpainting when it turned to yellow ochre color instead. The acrylic gesso medium just kills metallic effects.
LOVE that painting. You used it so well and gave a glint of sun here, there, and everywhere! So bright and glorious!
I might also use it to embellish prints if I'm printing an artwork for holiday cards, just do gold metallic flourishes on the print.
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