How to Gold Leaf

Gold leafing is one of the easiest and most common ways to give a prop a gilt look, or even to make it appear like a solid piece of gold. Real gold leaf is actual gold hammered into a sheet as thin as a piece of tissue. For theatrical purposes, we nearly always use metal leaf which replicates the look of gold. There exist more complicated and elegant ways to gild an object, but the quick and easy way I’m going to show you involves applying the leaf directly to an object which has been coated in gold size.

The materials you will need are the gold leaf, gold size, a brush for applying the size, another brush that will remain dry, and your object. The most common sizing I’ve seen in theatres is Wunda Size, which is one of the few water-based sizes, meaning easier clean-up and less fumes when wet. (You can read an interesting treatise on gold size if you’re interested in learning more.)

Supplies for gold leafing
Supplies for gold leafing

You need to prepare the surface you are leafing. The leaf does not hide or fill imperfections; If you wait until after you’ve put the leaf on to sand the surface, you will simply sand the gold leaf off.

The color underneath the gold leaf is called the “bole” color. Traditionally, terra-cotta clay or red paint is painted underneath to give a warm feel to the gold. A yellow or golden bole gives an even, neutral look, and helps cover up any cracks or uncovered spots. These are the two most common boles you will find for theatrical purposes. A black bole gives a very cold look, and is good for imitating Art Deco pieces. Other boles you can experiment with are various greens or even blues.

Pieces with different boles painted on
Pieces with different boles painted on

Once your bole is applied and dried, you brush on your sizing. You want to make sure you work it into every crack and crevice. You must wait for it to dry completely before you begin with the gold leaf. This can take anywhere from ten to twenty minutes depending on how much you put on, as well as the temperature and humidity. Technically it’s not “drying”, it’s becoming tacky. Size can remain tacky for hours, even days, before it dries, which is one of the properties that makes it desirable for gold leafing.

Applying the sizing
Applying the sizing

Now that the sizing is no longer wet, you can carefully take a sheet of gold leaf. Start smoothing it onto the surface with your fingers, and finish up with a clean and dry paintbrush to work it completely onto the surface. As you get overlapping and overhanging pieces, you can remove them by brushing really hard with the brush. At this point, it’s almost as if you’re burnishing the gold with your paintbrush; you want to rub it until there are no more gold flakes sloughing off of the piece.

Laying the leaf on
Laying the leaf on...
Working it in
... working it in...
Brushing it smooth
... and brushing it smooth.

I realize it may look like I misplaced the leaf, but I left the end bare to illustrate the differences in the boles as seen in the following photograph.

Examples of gold leafing on top of various boles
Examples of gold leafing on top of various boles

It is difficult  in a static photograph to make out the differences which the various boles give you. What makes gold leaf interesting is how the various surfaces catch and reflect light, and how that changes as either the object or the observer moves. The bole color you decide to use is dependent on the colors and tones of the set and costume, as well as the type of stage lighting used. Don’t lose too much sleep over it; the majority of items gold-leafed for theatre are either red or yellow depending on how much warmth or age you want to give the object.

You will notice gaps and cracks in your gold leaf where pieces failed to stick. You can take smaller flakes and apply them to these spots, again using your bristle brush to rub the leaf onto the surface. If you find particularly stubborn areas where the gold leaf won’t stick, it means you need more size. Go back and touch up the uncovered areas with a second coat. Once it has dried again in ten to twenty minutes, you may return for round two of applying the gold leaf.

Monday’s Rockin Links

I spent the weekend with my wife at Monomoy Theatre, where she is the guest scenic designer for two shows. I wish I could turn that into a segue for today’s blog post, but unfortunately, it just means I only had time to hunt down some links for you all. Maybe at the end of the summer, I’ll have a “what did you do on your summer vacation” post to hear your stories about propping summer stock shows and what not.

  • Here is an interview with Paul Alix, one of the model-makers on the new Predators movie. It also includes a video of him demonstrating some casting techniques.
  • Speaking of casting, here is Sarah Gill casting a sheep’s head. It’s from 2007 but still loads of fun.
  • Design*Sponge has great pieces on the histories of certain objects. Two recent ones include the history of the fork and the history of the curule (an x-stool, or folding stool).
  • British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association has loads of information on antique furniture, including a glossary of terms used to describe pieces and parts.

Blood Sponge Bag

I touched briefly on the idea of blood sponges in a short video from last summer; we were preparing to use them for The Bacchae, but the scene was re-blocked in a way that negated their necessity. A “blood sponge bag” is an extension of that idea. This effect allows you to produce blood on cue with an easily-hidden apparatus.

Supplies I used
Supplies I used

You need some cling wrap (aka “clear plastic wrap” or “Saran wrap”), thread, blood, and a sponge. Don’t be fooled by the preceding photograph; even though I’m using a fancy natural sponge, cutting a chunk off a regular kitchen sponge will serve you just as well.

Wrap the sponge in saran wrap
Wrap the sponge in saran wrap

Soak the sponge in your blood and wrap it up in the saran wrap. You can fill the saran wrap with extra blood so the sponge is swimming in it if you want.

Wrap the sponge in saran wrap
Wrap the sponge in saran wrap

In lieu of cling wrap, you can also use plastic sandwich bags; your end goal is to create an impermeable membrane which is easily burst by squeezing. Balloons and Ziploc may prove too tough, and paper or fabric will allow the blood to seep through and spoil the surprise.

Tie the end up with thread
Tie the end up with thread

Tie it all up by wrapping thread around the end. You don’t even need to tie any special knots; just wrapping it a couple dozen times should hold it. You can wrap tightly to put the bag under pressure; this will make it easier to burst.

Concealing the prepared blood bag
Concealing the prepared blood bag

You can now conceal the completed blood bag on your person until the blood is needed. Just give it a squeeze and out it comes. There is, of course, the possibly noticeable sound of the bag bursting; usually this can be covered through the fight choreography. Because the blood is being held by a sponge, you can speed up or slow down the rate of blood flow by altering the pressure with which you squeeze it.

Squeeze to burst
Squeeze to burst

On sharing and secret knowledge

We do not invent things whole cloth out of the depths of our brains. Every idea we have is formed by making connections with all the experiences we have absorbed. Every book we read, play we watch, conversation we have, event we witness, song we hear – all of this fills our head and swirls around, sometimes for years, before getting regurgitated as a new flash of inspiration. We are seldom cognizant of how this works. The bizarre surreality of our dreams are a testament to that. But even dreams are simply what we already know, broken into tiny pieces and stitched back together in the most arbitrary fashion.

This is how our knowledge is built. Nothing springs forth from inside us. Rather, the knowledge already exists outside of us. It is our ability to use this knowledge and make new connections and discoveries with it that makes us useful. Some may argue it is the knowledge itself that keeps us employed. It’s true that some who jeaulously guard their tricks and formulas, methods and materials can keep a small monopoly on their services. But as the majority of knowledge can be discovered from other sources, the usefulness of these people disappears once someone with the same knowledge comes along. This is not to say knowledge is not important. Obviously, a prop maker needs a large base of knowledge. They take the time to learn all that is needed for their craft and seek out information which others may not care to discover. But that is merely the first step; what makes a successful prop maker is how they use that knowledge, how they experiment and integrate the various nuggets of information they hold to form new discoveries and inventions.

We should not think of our brains as fortresses, jealously guarding our secrets until the day a coworker spills them all and renders us useless. Rather, we should think of the sum of human knowledge as something we can all draw from and contribute to.

Consider this. You find a map which leads to a treasure. It takes you ten years to reach the point marked on it. Once there, you discover another map. You can keep this information to yourself; while you follow the path on the second map, anyone who wants to undertake the same quest must first take ten years following the first map just to reach the same point you have already reached. If you had revealed the second map at the beginning, that person could have spent those same ten years helping you follow the second path, perhaps even finding a shorter route than you would have found on your own.

Some may argue that it is more important to seek knowledge on your own than have it handed to you. This is of course true; the ability to seek and understand is great indeed. What matters less is what knowledge we are seeking. The information we start with is often taken for granted. The truths we take for granted were hard won before our time. We have the benefit of accessing all the discoveries acquired before our birth. Should not the next generation have that same benefit, even if it includes our own discoveries? Discoveries which we may have spent most of our lives on? Should we spend our most passionate and fruitful years learning which plants are poison and which are edible? Or should we spend them inventing delightful recipes to make with them? And should our children reinvent the same recipes, or spend the time creating cheaper and healthier versions of these recipes? The virtue comes not from discovering the same knowledge that our forefathers discovered, but rather from discovering any knowledge at all. We should never egotistically assume we have learned all there is to learn about our craft. Rather, by arming the next generation with our discoveries, we allow them to spend their passionate and fruitful years making new discoveries. More often than not, we work long enough that we can still benefit in our own lives with some of their discoveries.

When something has already been figured out, isn’t it inefficient to spend more of our limited time on earth figuring it out again? There is so much more that needs to be figured out on this world, and desperately so.

Midsummer Errata

Tonight and tomorrow night finally see the official openings of our two Shakespeare in the Park shows done in repertory: A Winter’s Tale and Merchant of Venice. I’ve been working on these shows since February, so it’s a bit strange at the moment to think of them as “done”.

Merchant received a particularly glowing review in the New York Times. It spends a bit of time discussing the set, and even goes so far as to point out particular props, something which is exceedingly rare in reviews at this level.

A spotlighted ticker-tape machine sits commandingly center stage as the play begins, right across from a manual exchange board.

That ticker-tape was made by the very talented Natalie Hart. The body was re-purposed from the inside of the gramophone machine which also appears on stage; the plastic dome had to be custom made by a plastics company she found. It seems one company in America used to make acrylic bell jars like the one we needed; I remember buying one for a ticker-tape machine I had to build back in 2002. When Natalie contacted them and told them it was for a theatre show, the owner asked, “Is it for Beauty and the Beast“? It would seem many productions of that show eventually find this same company. Unfortunately, they have ceased manufacturing them, and the only options these days is to have one custom-built like we did, find a used one, or go with the dangerous option of using a glass one on stage.

I’ll be remiss if I don’t thank all the other artisans, shoppers and interns who worked so hard on these two shows and helped create something so wonderful and amazing. I’ll be sure to go into more depth of what I’ve experienced and learned from these once I get some rest and some photographs.

Later this month, I’ll be attending my first S*P*A*M conference in the Bay Area. S*P*A*M (The Society of Properties Artisan Managers) includes the heads of properties departments at most of the countries regional theatres, educational theatre programs, and many other theatres of comparable size. Every year they have a conference to network, share stories and experiences, and take part in some activities. This is my first time going since I’ve joined, and I’m really excited to both meet so many people I’ve heard about and communicated with through email, and to visit San Francisco for my first time.

We will be touring the prop shops of Berkeley Repertory Theatre and American Conservatory Theater, as well as the Pixar Studios. In addition, we will be participating in a workshop by Monona Rossol, the President and founder of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, Inc. Those of you who’ve spent a summer at the Santa Fe Opera know her from the annual Safety Day which all artisans and employees are required to attend every two years. I’ve been through her seminar twice as a properties carpenter; it will be interesting to attend as a properties master.

On a final note, if you visit this website regularly, you may notice it undergoing various tweaking and modifying. If you have any comments or suggestions on how to make it more useful in terms of organization, or more pretty in terms of… prettiness, please feel free to share them with me.

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies