Brush gilding with gold powder and shell gold

Tools:

• Gold powder or shell gold
• Soft brush or bristles or squirrel hair bombasino (mop round brush)

For very small retouches or gilding of deep inlays, leaf can be replaced by gold powder, prepared with the help of a special binding agent, or shell gold, also called “godet gold”.
After binding the powder and the oil-based size, de-waxed shellac or gum arabic, apply the compound to the surface using a soft bristle brush.

Shell gold – a ready-made compound of gum arabic and pure gold – is applied with a brush that has been moistened with water, as you would normally do with watercolour.