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Hi, all. I don't check in here much because I seldom find time to do any oil painting with all my other activities (including compulsive gardening!) but I do enjoy seeing your work. I've been writing articles for Dave's Garden as my primary creative outlet lately.
I'm working on a small painting as a gift for a friend of mine that is with our local Jaguars NFL team as Executive Assistant for the charitable initiatives that are funded by the team owners. The Jaguar team colors are teal and gold, and I would like to use some authentic gold leaf (for the first time in my artwork). I went to our only professional quality art store in town. They have pure gold leaf, but (like most everything they sell), it was overpriced at $72 for 25 sheets that are about 3 inches square.
I've checked around on-line and can get the same thing for about $36 plus shipping (which is still more than I want to spend for this little project), and there is a company on eBay from Thailand offering 25 sheets of 24 ct gold leaf about 1 inch square (more than enough for what I want to do) for $5.95 with free shipping. I was ready to hit "Buy Now" when I thought I would check here first to see if anyone has some spare sheets of authentic gold leaf you could sell me, or perhaps we could arrange a trade of some sort?
Also, if anyone has previously worked with gold leaf in paintings and can offer some tips on how to do it, that would be greatly appreciated!
I only did one painting last year, and managed to crank out two last month for an art show that basically got canceled because I came down with the 3 week cruddy cold that seemed to be going around town and I was too sick to paint. I'll post some photos of the paintings when I get a moment.
Thanks, Fleur! I didn't know you were a painter. The portrait is wonderful. I've only done one portrait and that was a commission absolutely forced upon me to paint her daughter as a child from an Olan Mills type studio portrait. It was torture from start to finish, especially because I kept putting it off until the neighbor finally said, "I'm going to see my daughter next week. I need the painting by then." That's when I should have said, "Gosh, sorry, that is impossible." But I cranked it out (staying up to about 5 AM through the night to finish the painting and box it up wet so she could take it as additional luggage on the plane.
Definitely a "never again" experience. I think the portrait turned out o.k., except for the nose, and there was nothing I could do to make the girl not turn out to have a Miss Piggy nose.
Here's the only painting I did in 2007. Based on a plumeria photo by DGer, DutchLady, used by permission as the subject for the painting. Flowers and leaves are definitely more my thing --- flowers fortunately don't have noses!
Nice skyscape. the last time I was at the Albright Knox in Buffalo, they had some huge skyscapes that almost had me believing I could fly. Man, that was a very long time ago.
Jeremy I am sorry I did not get to the stuff yesterday, need to get motivated today and get it all sorted out. And thank you about the painting, I am trying to get set up so I can get back into it more . I did post some other paintings on the artisans chit chat thread ( think that is what it was called) .
I don't mind doing portraits if they are what I want to do but I hate commisions. lol I know what you mean about the lttle girl. rofl at the Miss Piggy nose. I had a lady once ask me to paint her grandson and because I needed the cash right then I went against my self imposed rule and said yes o.k.. Well she brought me this tiny photograph, with the kid wearing a jacket with a hood , miserable looking. So I asked about his hair colour etc and said I would do my best.
So painting done the lady sees it and says 'can you make him smile, oh and give him some curls at the front and long eyelashes.I said does he have curly hair , 'well no'. AAAaaaargh!!!!.
I love the plumerias that is gorgeous and I am in love with the skyscape!
