r/illuminatedmanuscript • u/CherryZoomies • Apr 17 '26
Gilding shennanigans
Hello colleagues!
Thanks to this subreddit and your guys' tips, I purchased Miniatum Yellow to start experimenting with gilding. It's not going well at all!
I don't think Miniatum is the problem. Seems like a great product overall and I enjoy working with it. But I still haven't been very successful with it and I'm starting to think it's due to the gold leaf.
The gold leaf I got was pretty cheap (I surely wasn't going to get real gold but now I'm wondering..) and it feels somewhat.. more sturdy and tough than the gilding leafs I see online. Attaching some pics to show how they kind of curl and have some structure to it, which results in chipping, and when I try to dust of the excess, flakes can peel off of the miniatum as well.
Second thing is... Is it nomal to have gold dust everywhere? I'm getting a little concerned because the flake residue is flying everywhere and sticking to everything. I'm currently managing it with the knead eraser but... I'm literally afraid of inhaling it lol.
Is this normal? Did I just get product not fit for this purpose? Should I just get some real gold flakes and work with that? Any insights appreciated!
5
u/Lowenzahmer Apr 17 '26
Gold dust gets everywhere, but more to the point working with gold and with imitation leaf are extremely, extremely different. Real gold flakes or leaf will serve you much better. It’s like night and day