“Catching the Light” 36″ x 36″ oil and metal leaf on canvas – $2,800
The idea started small. I was standing in an aspen grove photographing the trees and enjoying the sun on the golden leaves and listening to the whispering sound of the leaves in the breeze when I wondered how I could portray that feeling in my paintings. I looked at the leaves and saw the shimmering, glinting light and thought – “GOLD”!
I had always been intrigued with painters who used gold leaf in their paintings, but had never pursued it. When I did, I discovered that 25 5″ x 5″ sheets of 22ct gold leaf cost about the same as 500 sheets of an alloy composed of 88% copper and 12% zinc that has the appearance of gold. The “silver” composition is 100% aluminum. If I wanted to explore the process I didn’t want to be restricted to small amounts.
That was a good decision since I was soon to find out how many bits of the metal leaf floated onto my studio floor as I worked, and the freedom of using as much of the leaf as I wanted, expanded my creative ideas.
There were a lot of experiments and challenges – the greatest being how to photograph the paintings without the reflections appearing as white rather than gold and silver. Another surprise was that the silver acted as a mirror and reflected the colors of my clothes as I worked. The good surprise was how my studio started to glow with light from the paintings, inspiring me to use even greater amounts of the metal leaf.
We just delivered three paintings of the new series to the Lawrence Gallery, including the one above, and I’m completing several more with images other than aspen trees.
