Metal Leaf Swept

A swept frame that has been refinished in metal leaf and bronze powder with a dark finish. 

Refinishing a Swept Frame

Recent Gilded Frames - Old and New

The top frames are water gilded in 12ct white gold on an ogee shaped profile. The bottom frame is an early 20th C frame that is being refinished in metal leaf and bronze powder.

Metal Leaf Swept

This vintage early 20th Century swept frame has been refinished, the process is pretty quick and simple. First a shellac (Zinsser BIN) primer coat is painted on, then a red/brown casein based paint, the high points are painted with acrylic gold size and metal leaf is put on all these areas. Next the remaining red areas are painted with a bronze powder paint, which is made from glue and bronze powder. The last stage is a pigmented button polish coat all over and then some wax.

Metal Leaf

A couple of 20th Century frames that have been gilded at the corners, centres, and rails with metal leaf. The top frame is the one from a few posts ago, which had four broken corners.

Metal Leaf

Metal Leaf

This frame has been gilded using acrylic size and metal leaf. In this case I used transfer leaf, which means that each leaf of imitation gold has been pressed on to a piece of backing paper, the leaf is easy to handle and is simply placed on the sticky size and rubbed onto the surface, the pressure adheres the leaf to the size and it is removed from the backing paper.

Metal leaf gilt

This gesso and distressed paint frame has had the sight edge gilded in metal leaf.

Re-finishing a frame

This vintage Louis XIV style frame had a painted finish, it needs an antique style gilt finish so is being re-finished. Some repairs were made to damaged/missing areas, then it was painted with Zinsser primer, next came a coat of black paint, and then red/brown. Now it is ready to be gilded with acrylic size and metal leaf. 

Senelar mouldings

This is a pre-finished moulding, but it is a very good quality finish. It is made by a famous moulding manufacturer in France called Senelar, which is now called Larson-Juhl Senelar since the company was acquired by Larson-Juhl. The mouldings produced at the factory  in France are made using traditional water gilding and hand finishing techniques, and are the peak of pre-finished mouldings. An article on the companies history from Picture Framing Magazine can be seen here: History in the Making.

Metal leaf box

This box frame has been gilded with metal leaf using acrylic size (also called Wunda size), it was then sealed with an acrylic varnish before being given a coat of wax to add a little interest to the finish.

Re-gilded swept

This antique swept frame had a dull paint finish, it has been re-finished in metal leaf, sealed with shellac, waxed, and dusted with pigment.

Bamboo effect frame

Bamboo style frames are not something we use very often but they can be great for framing some Oriental and Far Eastern work. This moulding comes unfinished, it is obeche with the bamboo pattern made from moulded pasta material (wood pulp/binders) I made the frame and sprayed it with gesso, it was given a red base colour and then gilded in metal leaf. The gilding was distressed and then given a coat of button polish, a coat of black paint was applied all over and wiped off. Next it was covered in dark wax which was also wiped away with a cloth, finally some raw umber pigment was dusted over and the whole frame was given a good polish.

Finished custom frame

This is the customised frame that has been in a couple of recent posts, it has now been finished. The gilding was distressed a little and masked off, and the outer section was painted with acrylic primer and then with an off-white. Then some watered down paint was flicked and splattered carefully all over. The frame was finished with some sealer and oak wax.
The inner frame is painted grey, then has the same paint wash flicked all over before being finished with oak wax.

Metal leaf and acrylic size

           

This is the frame from a few days ago which I modified, it has been painted with several layers of gesso, then it was sanded and the area to be gilded was painted with a red water based paint. Next I masked off the area where the gilding would be and brushed on an acrylic gold size, once the size became tacky I applied the metal leaf.

Dark finish on Austin Moseley RBSA

This oil painting on panel is by Austin Moseley RBSA, and is for the John Noott Galleries in Broadway, where you can buy original works, and exclusive limited edition prints by Austin.
The wide scoop shaped frame has now been finished, it was seen a couple posts ago with some red Plaka paint on the inner and outer edges. These were gilded in metal leaf and the whole frame was then given a dark wax finish over paint washes.

Canvas tray or float frames

These two canvas tray frames or float frames have been gilded in metal leaf, with distressed paint on the inside and outside, finished off with light paint speckles.