Available Art: Traditional Gold Leaf Paintings of Maine

The following pieces are done in  Japanese traditional Gold Leaf called kinpakku. In Japan, I lived in a small  fishing village and now live in one here in Downeast Maine. These pieces are a wedding of these two cultures that have shaped my life and my art.

Let me know if you would like to see a video – Because of the ground rocks its very hard to  photograph to show the sparkle. 

For a detailed explanation of how these are done and the materials used, click here.

The Process

I first stretch a fiber paper  on panels with seaweed glue. This makes it taught. After the paper is waterproofed I gold leaf it. The pigment is made of ground rocks and a binder called nikawa. The opaque whites are ground sea shells. Originally ground pearls were used.

I have recently branched out into using oil as well as iwaenogu (ground rocks) and gofun (ground sea shells). The panels are prepared the same way as kinpakku but oil is viscous and occludes the gold creating vibrant colors.

Photographing gold leaf pictures to capture their full effect is impossible! Normally, to photograph art one needs to hold the camera parallel to the picture plane so there is no image distortion. However, with gold this means one is only recording the light bouncing off the gold washing out all color. Notice the color in this picture when the camera is help obliquely to the picture plane.

Longwood Gardens