Journaling a Console Pt III: Verre Egolmise
I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty. Needless to say Events transpire. Some we would rather not transpire. Especially unfortunate ones which transpire when we’re trying to get to the end of a very long project.
….
Resulting in me taking a crash course in the a-fore mentioned verre eglomise, a fancy French way of saying- reverse gilding onto glass.
While we are not yet at the end of this part of the Spiritual Journey into metal leaf madness, I am diverging from the base of the table to take you on a quick tour of the ‘lid’. Here you will discover how I have gone about first experimenting with silver leaf , and then applying it to the table top in order to make a minor repair.
Having initially attempted to rescue the small piece of mirror which came off with some gelatine water, I resumed to the idea of loose silver leaf.
Or did I waste some time using transfer leaf first? ‘All My Days!!!’ as the cool kids never said.
Back to the Process. – So, I soaked a test piece of glass in gelatin water* and then immediately applied the silver leaf using my gilder’s tip.
*The gelatin water is made by dissolving 2 gelatin capsules in a pint of hot water. It is important to note that the water that I used for this process was the same as the water used some days before when I tried to readhere the missing piece (unsuccessfully).
Therefore what followed may or may not have been related. Input would be wonderful if anyone has some. By the following day my silver had come up to a mirrored shine (like magic) there were barely any holes which would need repaired, and despite the wrinkled appearance from the night before- no sign of a fold! Only- it was looking slightly tarnished in appearance. Like a very subtle brown was present. However I am not sure if this was due to the gelatine aging a few days and being kept in the fridge, or, something to do with the water…
Needless to say if anyone knows the answer to this please let me know in the comments or DM me.
Otherwise I have set up another quick scenario just today, with the same materials only this time with Gelatine water I only just made up. This time I made half the amount and applied it as soon as it cooled. Results are to be seen but will post an image on Instagram tomorrow. However feeling that already in a short time, the reverse is looking a lot better than yesterday.
A lesson learned?
TBC…
N.B; Above image- Never do this. It’s not a thing.
The below image, although vague, is barking up the right tree. You will just have to take my word for it.
