More than paint: Metallic leaf

NaMoPaiMo and the International Model Horse Painting Party are events based around painting model horses. It seems obvious, right? After all, in both cases, the word "painting" is right there in the name.

Happily, that isn't always the case. Every year, we have someone cover the surface of their model with something more than the traditional paints, pastels and pigments. It's not what I expect when I started this event, but it's actually pretty awesome.

This amazing Maggie Bennett "Madhuve" was Silvia Perez' 2022 NaMoPaiMo project. She is a mixed media project featuring gold leaf stripes.

Silvia writes: The zebra was first painted in a mixture of white acrylic and pearl white Pearlex, with a couple of layers of violet iridescent PearlEx.

Then I sealed her and started with the golden leaf. I "painted" the stripes with the glue and applied the leafs, stripe by stripe. Most of the stripes required two or three layers of golden leaf, because they were easily damaged in the cleaning process due to their tiny size, despite my efforts to do it softly! 

Once all the stripes were done, the eyes and hooves were painted in acrylics, and then the model was sealed with glossy varnish special for gold leaf technique.

For the base, I applied a special paint used in warhammer to create dry mud effect, and then painted with inks. Grass for warhammer, too, and then real pebbles glued to the base to complete the look.

This year, Karen Williams is also using metallic leaf to cover her model. She describes the process like this: This is variegated composite leaf, which has copper in it (the dark areas). It’s fairly easy to apply: Start with a paint color that matches your leaf. This will help hide the areas the leaf doesn't stick to. Brush on the size - the sticky stuff, let it get tacky, then apply the leaf, being generous to get in all the nooks and crannies. I use a brush to push it in and sweep away the excess. After that, I burnish with a Q-tip or cotton ball. Then it's back to adding more size and trying again with the areas where the leaf didn't stick. This composite leaf doesn’t lay as smoothly as real gold leaf. Now I’m working with different sealers to see what doesn’t affect the patina. I tried the one recommended for it, but it did darken the colored areas. More work to do!

I've played with silver leaf a little bit, and found it equal parts fun and frustrating. I never would have thought to use it on a model, and certainly not on a micro scale zebra! Thank you, Silvia and Karen for pushing the boundaries of what we do during a model horse painting party!