This short video shows me applying gold leaf to one small hand-painted circle in the middle of a large canvas in my studio.
The gilding size has already been applied and dried to a nice tack. So this is just the step of pressing the transfer paper carrying the very thin sheet of gold into the size. A smooth surface isn’t the goal, so I’m just using using my finger to seat the gold, and an old watercolor brush for skewing. There’s some crinkling paper and the whisper of the brush as I clean off the excess leaf. I don’t know if this counts as ASMR, but I do think this process sounds nice.
Working on gilding gives me time to think about what’s going on in the painting. So here’s how I’ve been thinking about these circles lately:
Each circle surrounds the moment it was created. Some of these moments were better, some worse. But they are the moments I’ve been given. I gild them to honor that gift.
