Foil Technique

I belong to the ning site Lovin Mixed Media hosted by Gary Reef who is an incredible artist.  He freely shares his techniques through video tutorials and one of the techniques he shared was how to use aluminum foil with acrylic paints.

The first step was to take some aluminum foil and crumple it up, then lightly smooth it out and attach it to your substrate.  I was using a 5"x7" artist canvas and covered my canvas lightly in PVA to attach the foil, wrapping any extra around the sides and back.  I took some additional foil and "made" a snake and attached it to the upper right of the canvas with PVA.  I took a piece of an aluminum pie plate that had an interesting texture and placed it under the foil in the lower left of the piece and smoothed the foil over it to bring out the texture.

Then I added some acrylics to the mix.

The glare is distorting the colours and I can't seem to get around that.  I have an overhead fluorescent light in my workroom and it play havoc when I take pictures of anything with a shimmer.

The next step in Gary's technique is to put down a layer of bitumen.  For me, in Canada, that is acrylic driveway sealer and white spirits or varsol.  When that dark, tarry mix is painted on it darkens everything and then is taken back or removed with varsol to reveal the areas of colour you want seen.

As you can see, I removed quite a bit. It left all my colours darker, which I liked.  I then used a Krylon gold leafing pen to fill in some areas and to vein some of the creases.  I used a found object, a gold filigree heart, to give balance on the lower left.  The background is a second artist canvas, 8"x10", that was spray painted with hammered bronze paint before being attached to the smaller canvas.  This piece will be framed with a custom frame that I am making in my woodworking course. 

The frame will be 3" wide and I plan on using a black gloss treatment on it.  I'll post a picture when it's complete.