Gilder's Paste and Iridescent Luster Gel

Just in case you missed the update last night - We added two very exciting new products this week. Gilder's Paste in a variety of colours, and Iridescent Luster Gel. 

Gilder's paste is an intensely-coloured wax paste - resistance to water and common chemical reagents - excellent for coloring and highlighting. Use on metals, ceramics, epoxy clay, polymer clay, resin, etc. You may need to rough up the surface to give some tooth for the Gilder's paste to hang on to - i.e. the metal surface might be a little too slippery. Gilder's paste dries to the touch in about 10 - 15 mins, and hardens fully after 12 hours, when you can buff it to a shine. (If you put it on metal, and don't like the effect or think you have too much, I've had success with wiping it with Renaissance wax and immediately wiping both right off.)

To Apply Gilders Paste:

• With finger, sponge, toothbrush, paintbrush or cloth in a rubbing motion or use other creative mediums to produce a unique finish.
  
  
• Layered on top of one another or mixed to create different finishes or an endless color palette.
  
  
• Thin out with paint thinner to transform the highly concentrated Gilders Paste for brushing, sponging, staining, washing or spray painting.
  
  
• Drying time varies depending on substrate and surface preparation, approximately 10 - 15 minutes to the touch on dry debris free surfaces and 12 hours for complete cure time. If polishing or burnishing is required allow 12 hours drying time.
  
  
• Polishing the metallic Gilders Pastes with a soft cloth will produce a gilded finish substituting gold, silver, bronze leaf; nonmetallic pastes will be shiny. If left unpolished the finish will be semi gloss or mat depending on the color.

Dwyn made these with some Vintaj dragonflies - Love the colours! 

The other neat item we added last night is the Iridescent Luster Gel. For those of us who love the gorgeous blues and greens that we can sometimes get from Liver of Sulphur will love this product. It's designed to give those colours, and will go through a range of colours within 30 minutes. (Yellow, Gold, Orange, Red, Brown, Purple, Blue.) I highly recommend you do a couple test batches to see how long you'll need to leave your silver submersed to get the colour you want.

I tried two different batches. With the first batch, I removed a bead from the solution every 5 minutes. I found I was getting the irridescent patina much faster than I had thought. I ended up taking out two beads at 25 minutes as I didn't think much else would happen at that point.

I do apologize for  the pictures - the patinas are far more brilliant than what I was able to capture this evening. I have far more photography challenged days than not.

 2 - 10 minutes is actually a very nice dark seafoam green colour!

4 - 20 minutes - looks like mud in the pic - looks like mud in real life as well ;-)

1 - 5 minutes is my favourite, as I can see golds, blues, and purples - all in the one bead.

I then did a second batch considerably shortening the exposure time.

6 minutes looks quite dark here, but this is where I started to see the deep blues/purples.

I plan to experiment a bit further with some larger metal clay (fine silver pieces). Hopefully, I can get some better pics for  you.  I do quite like the patina gel though!