gold effect

[dlbk]

I'm trying to achieve a golden metallic effect, the way I can with silver leaf when I reduce it lightly. I've tried doing the same with gold leaf, but it doesn't react the same way. It seems to either be solid or get burned off. I also tried iris gold powder, which gives a sheen, but it goes brownish looking under the sheen, and masks the colors. Fuming with gold (if I understand it correctly - have never done it) would cover the entire bead, and I'd like to have the gold come and go, so the irridescence would be here and there, not everywhere, and also be somewhat opaque in areas.
Here's a link to some beads I've done with silver leaf that shows the effect I'd like to get, but with gold. The silver doesn't show up very well in the photo, so you might have to use your imagination a bit.

http://www.petemacko.org/picorama/Pi...m=2&p=519&a=35

Thanks!
Deb

and thanks again to Margi who let me post in her album!

[Shirl]

Deb, I took a class with Bronwen Heilman about a month ago. She showed us how to fume with 24k gold. I think this is the effect that you are looking for. The gold did not cover the entire bead, it just went where we wanted it to go. It shows up as a very definite gold shiny color. It's beautiful. Hope this helps.

[Ingridh]

Sonya Husko shared with me some frit from Arrowsprings called...bright gold...it is a reduction frit and it does give a lovely shiny gold effect.

[dlbk]

Thanks for your ideas! I'll have to wait on trying fuming, as I've read you need to be sure you have really good ventillation for it and mine is merely adequate right now. I had thought fuming covered the whole bead with a golden glow (I have a gorgeous Michael Barley bead like that), but if placement is controlable, that sounds neat. The bright gold frit sounds interesting. I wonder if it also comes in large chunks that I could pull as stringer?

Deb

[percyt]

I have some of that Bright Gold reduction frit and have not had very good luck with it. I can only get it to "be" gold in small areas-others are black or cloudy looking. Anybody have any hints for that?

[margi]

Yes, Deb, that gold reduction frit does come in chunks large enough to pull stringer with. My bag of "medium" has some pretty large pieces in it--but ordering the large frit would be safer in terms of being certain to get larger chunks...

PercyT--I too haven't had very good results with mine--sometimes it will turn gold, and sometimes grey and dull-looking. I've found that it helps to avoid using it on any of the ivories, as that's where it seems to turn silvry/grey/dull the most easily. I too would welcome helpful hinnts...

Margi

[margi]

P.S. Deb--it's too bad that gold leaf doesn't do nearly the same things that silver leaf does. I don't use it often, but it doesn't seem to create anything like the wonderful reduction effects and color changes that silver leaf does. You can, however, wrap gold leaf all around your warm bead, marver it on, and then melt parts of it off selectively--or encase it, and parts of it will melt away here and there depending upon how hot you get the encasing glass...

I've never done much gold fuming, but it DOES sound like that might be closest to the effect that you are after...And then, of course, there is encased goldstone stringer. I recently finished a commission to make two lavendar, black and gold bracelets, with all the beads different but similar in size. The "gold" parts of these beads were something of a "B...h," as I wanted all the gold to be the same shade, but instead I wound up with about four different colors of gold.

But my customers liked them...

Margi

[dlbk]

Margi - thanks for the info on the frit - I'll check out who has it. Maybe Wale first, as they're closer. It always seems to take forever to get anything from the west coast to here. It's a horrible disease this impatientitis I have!!
I'd like to try fuming, but I'll have to get better ventialltion first. Do you know if you can you build up the amount of gold when fumimg to create various levels of transparency? Or do you just get one basic laydown of a golden sheen and that's it? I'm interested in getting variety in the golden iridescence, and yes - it's a bummer the gold foil doesn't do what the silver does, because I LOVE what the silver does. I'll keep experimenting and see what I can come up with.
Your bracelets sound lovely - did you take any pictures???

Deb

[DonnaBee_]

"Do you know if you can you build up the amount of gold when fuming to create various levels of transparency?"

I get varying levels of transparency when I fume the gold onto different colors of glass.

So, I make the bead, decorate it with dots or whatever, using different colors of glass to make this base bead, then fume it. Then I get different shades of gold effect on the same bead. And different levels of transparency.

I like to make the base bead with clear, opaque pink (light and dark), cobalt, lapis.

I have noticed when I fume 24K gold onto clear, it is very transparent, and when I fume it onto lapis, it is more of an opaque solid gold appearance.

So if I made a clear base bead with lapis dots, and fumed it, it would have part trans gold, and part opaque gold appearance.

[DonnaBee_]

This bead, I don't remember what colors I used for the base glass, but I started with one color, then melted in some dots of another color, then fumed it. Hope this info helps some!