My First Reverse Glass Gild Sweetleaf Coffee

[Jen_Smitten]

Hi there,

It's been since early 2013 since I posted pictures of a surface glass job I did with aluminum. Through this forum I learned the the Logo, supplied to me by the X- co-owner, was used without permission which was unknown to the current owner. Anyhow that situation was resolved through the proper channels.

I'm happy to say I just recently finished my first Reverse Glass Gild for the same coffee shop/roasters on another location in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY. I would like to share my excitement with the completion of this project. Tons of online research, scouring the internet, and reading and re-reading Kent Smith's book. Wishing I had someone to talk to in person for advice - And tons of staring at the window trying to figure out how I was going to pull this off and almost gave up after doing some test samples... But I did not give up

I did use a vinyl mask for this project. After such a lengthy hand lettering and drawing on their last windows I wanted this process to go faster.
I'm sure there are many imperfections - most noticeably to me the letter A on the window that got messed up in the process.

Brick Wall: 1-Shot for the white letters. I printed out the letters to size, 16.5 feet long, and pounced with chalk.
Window Logo S: Ronan Japan with 23K surface gild.
Window: Ronan Japan Black, 23K gold, 1-shot size for mat center, Gilder's backup ochre and black mixed with Naphtha and 1-shot Hardner, Gilder's Bulletin Varnish

Thank you for the opportunity to share my photos and for all the information found on here.

Cheers,
Jen

[Anthony Bennett]

Nice

[Jen_Smitten]

Thank you

Any critiques are welcome.

[Dale Johnson]

To start with it is quite beautiful. About the only thing I would add is a lite gray shading on the white lettering. I do some gold gilding (mostly other that real gold) and have never done any reverse gidling. I am mostly a sign painter/pinstriper, using 1 shot and rust-o-leum. I have a Graphtec CE 6000 plotter for cutting vinyl and it sure speeds a lot of things up.

Keep up the good work. I will post some pics when I figure out how.

[Jen_Smitten]

Thank you Dale for your input!
I would love to get my own plotter one day. It would be so useful in so many areas of my work.

Cheers,

jen

[Roderick Treece]

Jen,
Looks very professional ,thanks for posting your photos.Keep up the great work.

[Jen_Smitten]

Thank you Roderick!

[Dan Seese]

Ditto on what Roderick said, Jen.
It looks great! Your research paid off. Hopefully this will generate more similar work for you.

[Lee Littlewood]

Like they said - good work.

I wanted to thank you Jen for your first thread - it showed me Sam Alfano and i bought his DVD on scrolls - great stuff!

[Jen_Smitten]

Thank you Lee! And thank you for all those wonderful suggestions in those posts before. Those were neat techniques that I would love to try one day!

Yes Sam Alfano's work is amazing!

Cheers,

Jen

[BruceJackson]

Hi Jen,
Congratulations on your first gilded window sign. It's a very pretty sign.

You did say critique was welcome, so I'll offer you some tips to help improve your work.

First, one thing that i notice with any and all glass signs, is if there's any residual gold around the outside of the black outlines. Take care to clean the excess gold off thoroughly until there is none remaining. I admit, it's a particular bugbear with me but i feel any residual gold halo just shouldn't be there as it's not part of the design.

The lower scroll appears to have some slightly chipped edges. I'm not sure exactly which method you've used. I'm guessing you laid down vinyl, sized and tack-gilded and then peeled off the mask for a matt finish? is that correct? There are several variations to this method around when to gild and when to peel out the vinyl. I know some people like to gild first, then peel. In this method, sometimes the gold will peel back a little and give a ragged edge. You need to ensure the gold is well adhered and lightly burnished down with cotton wool. You may need to review your technique and adjust it.

Personally, if using a mask, i prefer to peel early, wait for the size to come to the right tack, then gild. I find the edge is less ridged and more pleasing to the eye. Better still, hand-paint if you can. It gives the most pleasing edge of all.

[Jen_Smitten]

Hi Bruce!

Thank you Thank you for your reply and critiques!

I did actually clean up the gold that was on the outside of the letters and then varnished after I took those pictures. I should have posted pictures after the cleanup. I definitely understand about being meticulous about those details.

Yes you are correct about the scroll. I did lay down vinyl, sized, and tack-gilded, but then I quickly did the backup paint with the vinyl still down so that seems to be the problem. I do understand about the vinyl needing to get pulled up quickly but since I applied the backing it was probably too many layers. It was one of the processes that I pondered about forever. I wasn't sure about backing up and varnish or just varnish without the back up paint.

Are you meaning hand painting the size and then tack-gild? I agree with you about the hand-paint. It also such a more organic feel as well.

Thank you so much for you reply! I have referred to your site many times!

Cheers,
Jen

[BruceJackson]

You don't really need a coat of backing paint as well as varnish. Especially because oil-gilding is pretty robust anyway.
The main advantage is simply that you'll then have a consistent backing colour (typically black) that will look properly finished from the inside too.

I have had some jobs where they want the gold to be visible from both sides of the glass... but typically a black backing is the norm.

Whether masked (and peeled early) or hand-painted, it does means painting the back-up black right up to the edge of the work, but without going over it... it does take a bit of brush skill.

Partly for these reasons, doing elements of the design in a plain matt gold on glass is less commonly done that plain bright finish... matt gold is nearly always done within an outline, or as a fill-in.

[Jen_Smitten]

Cool. Thank you Bruce for your feedback!
That is useful to know that the oil-gilding is pretty durable even without the varnish.

Best,

Jen