I applied an oil gilding, which is now perfectly dry.
I’ve changed my mind, as I feel that some areas should be burnished to a high gloss. Can I apply red bole over this and water gold it on top of the matt gold of the oil gilding?
Thank you
That is very unlikely to adhere and even if it did, it could not be burnished to a gloss. Water gilding generally requires an absorbent ground with a water soluble/swellable binder, usually with a bole layer also bound in a water soluble/swellable binder. When burnishing water gilding you are actually burnishing the glue ground and glue containing bole and not the gold. Do to the thinness of the gold leaf, a layer of finished water gilding can still be whetted with water and additional leafs of gold can be added because of the thinness of the gold and the absorbance of the underlayers. Oil gilding creates a completely water repelling coating that dries very hard.
It is my understanding that there are modern gilding systems that allow for mirror-like leaf effects using non-glue underlayers. I have no experience with these and cannot comment of the results.
A search of “gilding” on MITRA will likely reveal additional info on this subject.
