gesso finishes

Way back in about 1990 when I first wanted to learn to gild, I bought a book. In fact, it’s the book on the subject: Practical gilding by Peter and Ann Mactaggart which I’ve since referred to many times.

But initially I got nowhere. There are no pictures and it’s not exactly a bundle of laughs, but the main problem was that I simply couldn’t believe that at the end of the twentieth century the best way of doing something was boiling up bits of dead animals amongst the many other rituals required to do the job.

So I went on a course: five days with the Rural Development Commission, and it was great. With a bit of practice, I was away. But then I spent the next ten years or so trying to invent more efficient ways of achieving the same sort of results. I only came back wholeheartedly to the traditional processes and materials about six years ago, when I realised just how brilliant they are.

Shortly after the gilding course, I visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo with Caroline on our honeymoon. Getting as close as I could to the remnants of the Pharaohs’ tombs, I could see the bits of gilt still remaining in places, and in others the layers of gesso and clay underneath. The process is exactly the same now as it was then over 3,000 years ago. There’s a reason that nothing better has come along – it’s hard to beat.