Guide to illusionpainting

This is my first post where I'm gonna talk a bit about how I do when I paint a illusion painting, also called trompe l'oeil, on a gilded background.

For this specific project I started with a flat canvas board and a reference picture of the pattern I wanted to paint. You can absolutely design your own pattern that you want to use, but this time I just wanted to get started as fast as possible.

I had some vague ideas of the colours I wanted to use and remembered an old piece that https://www.instagram.com/minnamaja000/ made when we studied together a few years back. So my decision ended on the fantastic hue Preussian blue! Casting shadows are painted with Payne's gray.

Since the surface I wanted to gild already was non-porous the first step was to apply a waterbased leaf adhesive directly on the surface. If the surface had been non-porous already I would've had to change that by, for example, painting it or putting on a layer of laquer.

I diluted the adhesive somewhat with water to get a more fluid consistency. To apply the adhesive I used a bigger soft artist brush and painted the entire surface. Then I let it sit for about 10min until it got sticky and made a squeaky noice when I dragged my finger over it.

To protect the aluminium foil I was gonna apply I put on thin cotton gloves before I handled the foil sheets. The gloves makes sure the foil doesn't stick to your hands because of the natural oils and such in our skin. The sheets are fairly delicate but can be handled with the your hands and fingers in comparison to leaf gold. Loose real leaf gold needs to be handled with a soft and whispy brush like these ones. Also be aware to not create to much motion in the air that causes air flow. The foil sheets will move if the air current is to strong. Breath calm and collectedly, not too heavy sighs when things don't go your way!

I gently lifted up one foil at a time, adjusted it and tried to keep it as flat as possible to minimize wrinkles when applied.

Once the foil sheet was stuck to the canvas I quickly went on with the next sheet before doing anything more with the first one.

When the entire canvas was covered I patted everything down so that it properly stuck everywhere and polished off excess bits and pieces. I used my fingers with the gloves on to polish and press everything down or scrunched together the glove to a more firm cloth ball and rubbed it gently all over the surface.

The short video clip is later in the process but shows at least some of the gilding.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/cdc118_f173b154bbb340a48b73b953a3791814/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Because I used aluminium there is no need for a protective layer like schellac since it won't oxidize like brass or copper would.

Now I has a fully silvered surface and the drawing could begin. If you wanted to you could print the pattern and then use a carbon paper to trace everything but I decided to sketch it instead. I started with the basic shapes to make sure everything would fit but I also had to be aware that erasing anything on the silver surface would be difficult without ruining the gilding. Once the basic flow was down I continuously added details until the design was done.

I tried cleaning up the lines constantly and carefully and when all the details were in place I could move on to my favorite part of the process: Painting! I started with a uniform layer of white acrylics to get an opaque base for the oilpaints to stick to without the metallic shining through. Luckily the detailed lines showed through the acrylics which later helped me with placement of the oilpaints.

I put some Preussian blue on a palette and diluted it with some boiled linseed oil to help it dry a bit faster and have a better consistency. I mainly worked with 3 different brushes of varied size for the application. One brush for working with the wet paint and the other two I kept dry for blending out the paint . Every now and then I wiped off the dry brushes on a piece of kitchen paper (other firm type of paper or cloth works as well).

I did two layers to really deepen the blue and let it dry in between each layer before I went over the highlights with titanium white in the same blending technique as with the blue.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/cdc118_d6b19baaac094f4ab176e0ef2b0fe53b/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

A video showing the blending technique I used throughout the project!

Since I couldn't erase the sketch lines on the metal foil without smudging everything and wear away the metal I now had to re-add foil in a few spots. The video earlier in this post showed this stage where I re-added foil to parts that needed to be cleaned up.

After doing those touch ups I could then proceed to paint in the shadows in two layers, using the same blending technique as the ornament. Below is a picture of the final piece!

If you want to try this at home, don't forget that using linseed oil, you have to correctly dispose of the cloth/kitchen paper and not roll it into a ball and throw it in the trash. If you do that, the cloth can self-ignite! I don't want to be responsible for you burning down your house by accident so here is a how I do it: I dispose of those rags by drenching them in water and then putting them in a small plastic trashbag, pressing out as much air as possible and then wrap/knot it tightly and throws in a metal bin with a lid. Store it in a cool place out of sunlight and then follow local regulations for disposal. Fire hazard solved!

So that's a quick overview of how the process works. If you have any questions or want me to explain some part of it in greater detail in a follow up post please let me know!