Gilding the tondo

Portrait of a boy
acrylic and 24 karat gold leaf on canvas
6 x 6 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010
(now the painting is gilded. Next?)

Okay so I've been reading up on tondos, (round paintings)
and my little painting wouldn't qualify as a tondo. Why?
It's too small -- they're supposed to be a minimum of
two and a half feet across. Steven had the good idea of
calling mine a tondo piccolo.

Today I spent the afternoon gilding over the red outside
part with 24 karat gold leaf. Tedious but fun. I'm not
quite finished because I should perhaps make a second
inner circle and I'm debating with myself about whether
or not to decorate over the gold.

The gold leaf photographed with a flash

I did some work on the face and the hair, and may
beef up the white in his shirt tomorrow. I know that I
really don't paint anything like Botticelli, and that's
all right. I was going through old reference photos,
and this image was one I couldn't use when I did
this young boy's portrait. I'd just been looking at
a round painting of Mary with eight angels when I
found this, and the angels look like teenage boys.
In fact one of my friend's nephews looks exactly
like one of the boys who posed for angels in that
painting. And my client's son had a slightly
angelic air, but also a fantastic sense of humour.

So here's the next stage -- gilding.

Have a happily-working-on-new-projects day.