We’ve been procrastinating on the transom house numbers for a few years. It’s intimidating doing sign painting. Finally, I got around to doing it.
Mole made a template printed on paper, with the numbers reversed. She just printed the black outline and shadow. I’ll be painting the black outline and shadow on the glass first, then filling it in with real gold leaf.
After thoroughly cleaning the transom glass, I aligned and taped the paper template to the outside of the glass. The numbers are going to be painted on the inside, so I can look through the glass and paint over the black areas. Using ‘One Shot’ sign painter’s paint, I painted the number outlines on the inside of the glass.
There was quite a bit of involvement by our usual inspectors. Arwen couldn’t resist climbing the ladder to get a closer look.
There are two things that make this painting difficult. Firstly, painting is a skill that I’ve never practiced. A paintbrush is much more difficult to control than a pen or a pencil. I kept misjudging how close the glass was, and making a mess. It’s really difficult to paint a smooth, straight line. Secondly, the glass is about 1/8″ thick, so I had to look perpendicular to the glass at the outline drawing on the outside, or the lines would be offset slightly.
A few hours later, I was done with the outline. Next time, I’d make a template with just thin lines for the edges, and paint up to those, or use a color for the template. It was hard to see whether I’d painted, or it was the template, because it was black on black.
I let the paint dry for a few days, then on to the next step.
To get the gold leaf to stick, I painted gilder’s size onto the inside of the glass inside the black outline that I’d already painted. The size has to dry before the gold leaf is applied. The mistake I made, is that you only need a very thin coat of size. I painted it on too thickly, so the size wasn’t uniform and perfectly clear. Oh well, it looks a bit more aged… Then, once the size had dried, carefully, I placed gold leaf onto the numbers. Lesson here: whole sheets are better than pieces. At first I was tearing the sheets, and trying to lay them over only the number. The problem is that at the joins, there is sometimes a gap. Also, the leaf breaks whenever there’s any wrinkle in it, so it makes another gap.
I gently rubbed the gold leaf to burnish it flat, and the leaf that did not have size behind it rubbed off.
Ta-da! Our transom number completed. It looks fine from a distance. Up close, you can see my slightly jagged painting: Mole will be doing the other one, because she’s much better with a paint brush.