It amazes me how a few quick coats of paint change a project so dramatically. We primed the project using Coastal Enterprises thick bodied primer. We had brush our paints and then went back and did one more thick coat on the lettering with a small brush to add a final bit of texture. It would make the gold leaf sparkle just a little more.
After priming it was on to the base colors and glazes. We use all acrylic paints in our shop, applied by hand with a brush. The base color in this case was the yellowy tan... and it looked pretty awful. But I wasn't worried for we were not nearly done. Next up I flooded the sign with a brown glaze and wiped it off judiciously exposing the highlights on the raised portions. It was still pretty bright.
The last layer of glaze toned everything down nicely. The lighter colors peeking though added a richness to the piece. The woodgrain looked pretty convincing at this point.
The 3D graphic was painted in much the same way, with colors that appeared much too bright until the glaze was flooded on and then wiped off with a rag. Then I double coated the borders, edges and back of the sign with the dark chocolate acrylic, leaving one last step before we were done.
Gold leaf is pretty easy to do. It adds glamor and sparkle to a sign that simply cant be done any other way. While it adds tremendous value to a sign it doesn't really cost much to do. This project used two books of gold - about $100 dollars worth when bought in bulk. To do gilding the letters are first painted with the oil based size and then allowed to tack up until most of the stickiness is gone from the size. Then small sheets of gold is pressed in and burnished down. SHAZAM! INSTANT BLING!
Then it was delivery day...
-dan
