Artist of the Year 2025: Masterclass - Season 1 Episode 36 -Painting with Gold Leaf
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00:00Today's tutor, Lorna May Wadsworth, took part in Portrait Artist of the Year in 2024, painting
00:18boxing champion Ricky Hatton, who thought the portrait was a knockout.
00:24And chose it to take home.
00:43Lorna works in an array of mediums, but has a particular passion for all that glitters,
00:49making her the perfect tutor for today's masterclass, painting with gold leaf.
01:14I'm really excited to be sharing a technique with you today, which is gilding and using
01:19gold leaf within your artworks. I want to demonstrate and show you how it's not as scary
01:24and intimidating as you might think it is, and that it's actually quite a lovely and
01:30easy way to bring an element of light and pizzazz into your work.
01:35So today I'm fortunate enough to have a model with me, Jamel, who I'm going to be producing
01:40a portrait of in oils. But first of all, I'm going to do some gilding on my round
01:46panel, which is going to create a kind of halo effect around his head and really, really
01:52make the composition vibrant and him stand out.
01:55I'm working on a round panel, which is traditionally called a tondo, and they were used a lot in
02:01the early Renaissance. I just think they look really cool. What I've done is I've already
02:06put the glue on, it's called size for gold, and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to
02:14achieve the right level of tackiness, which you want when you lay your gold on. So it's
02:18almost like sellotape. And then you have a three hour window, it's called open, so it's
02:25open for that amount of time. And so you've got to get your work done within that time,
02:29otherwise it will dry.
02:32So there are two types of gold leaf. There's loose leaf, which is this kind of scary kind
02:37that you need to pick up with friction and cotton wool balls. And then there's this kind,
02:41which I shall be demonstrating for you today, which is transfer gold leaf. So it's backed
02:45onto tissue paper with this space around it so that you can pick it up and manoeuvre it
02:51and then flip it over and put it on your support when the size has reached the right level
02:57of tackiness. So let me have a go with the first one.
03:01So I will line it up so that it's horizontal, I think, because you can see, because these
03:12little sheets of gold, they come about eight centimetres, you can see where they join.
03:19So bear that in mind when you start to lay it on, if you want to lay it on so that it's
03:24kind of diagonal or straight. So you've seen me just flip it over, and then with the pad
03:31of my finger, just rub on the back. And that is transferring the gold to the glue. And
03:39then the moment of truth comes when you pick up and look where the glue is, it's coming
03:50off. And then that's from the edge where it wasn't needed. Now I tend to keep those bits,
03:57that on the side, because there'll be little tiny areas that come up that you might not
04:02want to use a whole sheet on. So here we go, the next one. Let's put that. So I started
04:10off where there was the kind of the thickest part of gold rather than starting at an edge,
04:17because I tend to want to make the gold go as far as possible. So I find if I go where
04:23the most of the square will be used, then that helps me do that, because it's not as
04:31expensive as you'd think, the packs of gold leaf, for a special project, but it is worth
04:37making sure that you don't waste it. So that's going on quite well. Another little hint is
04:43the tissue can get stuck to the glue at the edges, and be very gentle to tease them off
04:49because you don't want that paper to tear and get stuck in the glue. So here we go.
04:54So you can turn the panel around to bring it to you, and just keep going really. It's quite
05:06satisfying. So for this picture, I'm using a classic yellow gold, 23 carat gold leaf. Look,
05:18I'm just turning this around and using that same piece for this corner here. But they actually do
05:24gold in different shades. One shade that I like to use a lot is called moon gold, which is a bit
05:31more silvery, but doesn't tarnish like silverwood, because it's still high enough carat. And there's
05:37green gold. So yeah, depending on the tones and the colours of the painting that you want to make,
05:45you can choose gold to work with that. In order to work out which bit I was going to
05:53gild before the painting, I needed to work out exactly the negative space. That is the
05:59space that I'm gilding, the space around Jamal's head. And I couldn't leave that to chance. So what
06:07I did is I got him to send me a photograph of himself straight on, and used that in order to
06:14create the outline and the plan of the painting. So that when I go to paint him, everything's in
06:21the right place. So you might wonder why I'm doing the gold now and not at the end of the painting.
06:33Well, I have primed the board with this lovely fluorescent pink colour. And I've used an acrylic,
06:41because if I'd used an oil paint, then the gold is likely to stick to the paint and not just the
06:48area where you want the gold to go where you've put the size. So by doing it now, it means that
06:55I can get the gold exactly where I want it. If I was doing it afterwards with an oil painting,
06:59if you want to go and put gold on at the end after an oil painting, when you finished it,
07:03you can do, but if I were you, I would make a stencil cut out to cover the areas where you
07:10don't want the gold to go. So sometimes when you're putting it on, it's going on really,
07:22really well today. But sometimes when I pick it up, some bits will stay on the paper. There's
07:31one tiny bit there that I can see hasn't come off. So it's always good to just take it up
07:36partway but not fully. So if there are bits that haven't properly stuck,
07:41you just go and put it back down and have another rub.
07:44So you might be wondering why I have decided to have this pink colour as
08:05my ground. Well, traditionally, gilding was done and is done on a kind of Italian red shade. And
08:15that's so that if any of the gold chips off, that it's all held together by a sense of warmth. And
08:23imagine if you just chipped a bit and there was white underneath. So I started using a kind of
08:31fluorescent pink as a kind of sort of pop art play on that traditional ball, it's called,
08:39or bowl. And also, I think the colour will work really well under Jamal's skin as a ground.
09:01Here I've got a really soft brush. And so what I'm going to do now is use this soft brush to go over
09:10these bits that you can see of loose leaf. You could try sweeping these little gold dust crumbs
09:19up, but I tend to leave them for the fairies. It's looking pretty good.
09:24So let's have a look at that. So the thing that I love so much about gold is that how it's so
09:35organic and alive as to how the light falls on it. So if you have something on your wall in your house,
09:40it changes as the day bears on and the light moves around. And I love that about it.
09:46So it's time to get my paints out and start painting.
09:54I'm using oil because I tend to like to paint in oil the best. I really like being able to move the paint around.
10:06And I also find you could tend to get nicer paint pigments. There are people that use very strict
10:13palettes and certain colours, but I was never taught that way. I was just sort of mostly self-taught.
10:20And so I just like to work very instinctively and have fun.
10:40So the reason that I've got Jamel looking at me and I've got this Caravaggesque lighting is I want to
10:47really echo but bring up to date the icon paintings of the past and create a powerful
10:53image where Jamel is looking out empathetically at the viewer. And I want to capture something
11:01that's quite moving and well, we'll see how it goes. So I'm starting by mixing a dark shade
11:09to go in to model the darks,
11:16which is a mixture of ultramarine and sap green.
11:21But at the moment, I just want to get in the darks as a kind of way of drawing in,
11:30kind of an underpainting.
11:39You can see the pink of the ground that I'm working directly on, that alters the colours
11:46that I'm putting on it a lot because it doesn't look like I'm putting green and blue on here.
11:51It's really coming off as brown because the red colour of the ground is mixing in
11:57with what you can see.
11:59I often like to get the pad of my finger in to move the paint around.
12:03This is why I love oil paint so much because it's so forgiving at moving things around,
12:10whereas with acrylic it dries so quickly, you don't have that luxury.
12:14So I've got the grid on here on the reference picture.
12:20And I've got a faint grid on the bottom of the painting.
12:23I've got a faint grid from when I did the outline,
12:27so I can sort of see that I need to get that eye finishing about there.
12:46So right now I'm painting the background.
12:49So right now I'm just trying to drink Jamel in and I work really instinctively and I mix
12:58colours really instinctively and I felt that a lot of it, where the light is hitting his face,
13:05the highlights, that there's quite a lot of green in that.
13:08But also there's a lot of the kind of golden brown and burnt sienna.
13:12So at the moment I'm sort of like in the kind of wild stage of the painting
13:17where I'm kind of mixing colours and sort of throwing them at the panel
13:22and we'll see how it goes, we'll refine it as I go along.
13:26But I'm just trying to feel through the colours and what they're saying they are to me.
13:48So I'm trying to mix a black, black, black, like the blackest thing,
13:53the darkest thing without it being black.
13:56So I'm mixing together a purple and that sap green which is really pigmented and strong.
14:02And then I feel like I need to put in the chin which is about here,
14:09because that's one of the darkest things that I can see, that jawline.
14:13And also this bit here, which is the side of Jamal's head,
14:20just the top of his ear where his hair is meeting the side of his...
14:27And this is the bits where you can see the oil is going a bit over the...
14:32where I've got the gilding and also the way that the gold shines through.
14:38So I feel like I've got enough down to start putting the eyes in
14:43with the structure of the face and with the highlights and the lowlights.
14:49But there's no particular rhyme or reason,
14:51every painting can take me in a different direction.
14:53So I'm just trying to get the right balance.
14:56So I'm going to start with the eyes and then I'm going to work my way down to the nose.
15:02And then I'm going to work my way down to the mouth.
15:05Every painting can take me in a different direction.
15:07So trust your instincts when you're painting.
15:09Don't feel like, oh, but I should be doing this bit now.
15:12So and I'm not, so it's all gone horribly wrong.
15:14There's no rule book, like you just work from what feels right and natural to you.
15:20So I've just swapped for a slightly smaller round brush
15:25because I feel like I'm going to go in and do,
15:27start the whites of the eyes and a little bit more detail.
15:29So I purposefully started with quite a large round brush, not too big,
15:34but quite so I could do quite loose, gestural, broad brush strokes.
15:38And then I'm going to work my way down to the nose.
15:40And then I'm going to work my way down to the mouth.
15:42And then I'm going to work my way down to the nose.
15:44And then I'm going to work my way down to the mouth.
15:46So I could do quite loose, gestural, broad brush strokes.
15:51For the whites of eyes, they often have yellow in and blue.
15:56And they're never actually white, white.
16:00Sometimes they have a bit of red in.
16:02And I often will just put a little bit on and see how it's going.
16:06And it might not be, might immediately take it off and it'd be wrong.
16:17So, let's have a go.
16:22Over my head, that's it.
16:29And then there's not, it's a lot darker on this side.
16:35But maybe if I just put it on thinner, it will appear not as bright.
16:47MUSIC PLAYS
17:05So, I feel like I can see blue here.
17:12The outer corner of Jamal's mouth,
17:18putting it on quite translucently.
17:22When I see a shadow, I don't think,
17:24oh, that's a dark version of what I can see in the light.
17:29I look at what colours are in that shadow,
17:31and invariably, it'll be a cool shadow,
17:33it'll be a warm shadow, might have a bit of green in it,
17:36a bit of blue in it, and I'll go to that colour
17:39to start to make the shadow,
17:40rather than a black, or thinking of it
17:43in terms of just a darker version of the light tone.
17:48I've just got the ultramarine quite thinned out
17:51on the brush, and I'm taking that around places
17:55where I'm just sort of drawing in,
17:57so that needs to come in,
17:59some of the darker elements around the eyes.
18:05Slow before receipt
18:15Don't be alarmed if things start to drip,
18:17sometimes nice, happy accidents can happen,
18:21so yeah, I'm trying to keep it
18:23quite fast and loose at this stage.
18:25Often the best bits, most exciting bits
18:27in a painting, are bits that almost happen by mistake,
18:31they're the marks that you make
18:32before you make the proper marks,
18:35and often they've got a lovely energy and freedom to them.
18:40So I've immediately gone in and seen a green
18:44in Jamel's cheekbone there.
18:48And the other thing is, you might have thought
18:50that a lot of what I put on at first was quite dark,
18:52but then you see when you do put darker tones on,
18:55these things that looked quite dark at first
18:58actually aren't dark at all,
18:59and I could maybe do with some more colour
19:01in this area of shadow.
19:03Just using the grid reference again
19:05to double-check where the nostrils should go,
19:09because they're very important to anchoring the composition.
19:13They're going to be another one of the darkest points.
19:17So I'm just putting them in lightly first.
19:30I feel like I need some highlights now.
19:34I've been working in with that dark mixture.
19:38I want to just capture where the light
19:41hits Jamel's upper lip here.
19:44To suggest the lips more, and I've put the dark in,
19:46I'm now going for the lightest part.
19:48So this is a mixture of a kind of permanent rose
19:53and a green shade.
19:57So I'm going to look, I'm looking at the lip,
20:01but it's not at the lip so much
20:03as the bit of skin next to the lip.
20:06I am blessed with a live model,
20:08and I also have a reference picture set up near my easel.
20:13Now the advantages of the live model
20:15are that this allows me to do this
20:18in a very natural way,
20:19and the image is very, very clear.
20:22I don't want to be doing this in a picture.
20:24I want to be doing this in a painting.
20:27I don't want to be doing this in a sculpture.
20:29I want this to be done on a canvas.
20:32Now, the advantages of the live model are that it opens up so much more scope
20:38than if you're just working from a photograph.
20:41Photographs are an incredibly valuable tool,
20:44but it tends to white out whites.
20:46It tends to flatten images.
20:49If you're not careful, you can end up doing
20:51a lovely painting of a photograph.
20:53But when I'm painting people, I really want
20:56to capture as much of that person as I can
21:00and see them through the prism of my eyes
21:03and what colours I see as the light falls on their flesh in front of me.
21:06So if you ever have the opportunity to work from a live model,
21:10you can persuade a family member to sit for you,
21:12then I urge you to do so.
21:18I'm getting to the point where I don't know if I should just
21:24leave what I've got, which I think is something nice and expressionistic.
21:29And if I labour longer, I might lose some of these lovely fresh marks,
21:33which I think are working really well.
21:35But even if I leave it at this very loose, unfinished stage,
21:40there's one thing that I do want to get just right,
21:44and that's the catchlights in Jamel's eyes.
21:47And if I place those just so, then that will really, really
21:51breathe life into the painting and be very rewarding.
21:55So I try and save doing these right until the end
21:59if I have the self-control.
22:21I think it's finished. Mm.
22:24I mean, I could go on, but I'm liking where it's at.
22:28It's quite loose. Do you want to see it?
22:32Sure. Yeah?
22:39Oh!
22:41That's good. You like it? I love it.
22:43Do you see yourself? I do see myself.
22:45Do you like your halo? I do like the halo.
22:48I do like the gold leaf, how it shines in the light.
22:52And, yeah, when you... Yeah, exactly.
22:54Almost looks 3D-ish.
22:56So I hope you can see how gold leaf might be worth giving a try
23:00and how exciting it is and experimental it can be.
23:04I love the way that it's so shimmery and yet solid
23:08and alive within the composition,
23:11and I really enjoy making marks that riff on that.
23:14And I think you can see that you don't need to have, like,
23:17a super-finished master plan that is something that you can
23:20play with and bring into your work in a kind of playful, joyful way.
23:27If you'd like to find out more about these masterclasses,
23:30go to our website skyartsartistsoftheyear.tv.
23:50© transcript Emily Beynon