Choosing the Best Gold Art Medium: A Comparative Guide for Artists

Choosing the best gold art medium can elevate any painting or drawing, creating dazzling highlights or subtle details. A finished painting or drawing is a culmination of a series of procedures to get the end result, this includes testing and trying materials to find which works best with each other and achieve the effect you are looking for. Take for example this painting of Chinese Lanterns (Physalis fruit). I was looking for a gold which could recreate the delicate cage which surrounds the bright orange fruit.
Image : pixabay

The Physalis plant has creamy white bell-shaped flowers in the summer and in the Autumn papery orange ‘lanterns’ (calyces) enclose the round berries. If left the lanterns will form a papery skeleton around the red orange berry.

Key Factors in choosing the best gold art medium for this project

I seem to be a bit of a magpie and had at least seven different types of gold art mediums and probably others somewhere at the back of the cupboard. But these would offer plenty of scope for testing and deciding on what I could active.

I had a number of criteria which the medium would need to achieve:
• Will the gold medium cover the medium used for the berry?
• Does it offer enough sparkle? lots of shine or more subtle?
• Is it the right Gold colour? Too dull or not bright enough?
• Am I able to work with it as I require? – In this case to produce very fine lines so needs to be able to be thinned with a for use with a fine rigger brush
• How does it dry? Does it dry lighter or intensify when dry?

This does not need to be regimental; these are the questions or a way to approach testing and trying materials towards a final piece. The surface will also determine the outcome but for this test I was using the same heavyweight cartridge paper that will be used on the final piece. It is useful to have off cuts of the surface you tend to use to test and try on the same surface you will be using for the final piece for more accurate results.

Testing your gold art mediums

I enjoy rediscovering mediums that may have not been used for a long time or finding that what you expected to happen either works better than you expected, or if not in the way you anticipate and at least you have found what does not work or a new way to work with the mediums.

These are the Gold art mediums I will be testing:
• Derwent Metallic paint – Gold from the Derwent Metallic Paint Pan Palette
• Derwent Metallic pencil – Gold from the Derwent Metallic Pencil Tin Set of 12
• Posca pen – Gold, fine nib
• Daler-Rowney FW acrylic ink – Gold (Imit)
• SAA watercolour – Gold
• Golden Acrylic – Iridescent Gold (Fine)
• Schmincke Aqua Bronze – Rich Pale Gold mixed with water
• Schmincke Aqua Bronze – Rich Pale Gold mixed with gum Arabic

Starting with small areas orange coloured mediums on cartridge paper a could then test the gold art mediums over the colour. I applied a line of gold over the mediums to see how it would react and whether it created a stable surface.

• Derwent Chromaflow Coloured pencils, Flame (0400) – this has a waxy finish, so I expected some mediums to resist the surface. Initially all the gold art mediums went over the coloured pencil but after the rub test, to make sure that the gold was not just sitting on the surface, I did find that the Aqua bronze did dust off** and the Derwent Metallic paint did not fully adhere to the waxy surface but I did expect the watercolour mediums to resist the surface.
  ** this happens because there is no binder when mixed with just water and, from experience, I know applying the medium mixed with water over a dry surface does not allow the paint mix to adhere to the surface, as there is no binder and will dust off. But as a powder it can be mixed with clear binder like Gum Arabic or a clear acrylic medium for an exciting and stable paint.
• Posca Pen, Orange – offered a clean flat colour which dries to a matt finish which allowed for all of the gold art mediums to easily apply over the colour. The rub test showed that the Derwent Metallic paint and the Schmincke Aqua bronze did rub off and had not adhered to the pen layer. Though this did create a lovely shimmer over the colour. The Gold Posca pen was easy to work with and have excellent covering power and you can control the line with the pen, but I felt this did not offer enough sparkle when compared to other mediums for what I wanted.
• Winsor & Newton Designer Gouache, Cadmium Free Yellow Deep – creates an even flat matt finish. All the gold art mediums have adhered to the colour, even after the rub test all except the Aqua bronze stayed put.
• SAA watercolour, Cadmium Orange Hue – this transparent colour allowed for all the gold to cover easily.
• Liquitex Basic acrylic, Cadmium Orange Hue – because of the paper surface the acrylic paint on the absorbent smooth cartridge paper dries more matte as it is absorbed into the paper fibres. This mean that even after the rub test the watercolour mediums , the SAA watercolour gold and Schmincke Aqua bronze when mixed with Gum Arabic adhered to the acrylic paint.
• Daler-Rowney System3, Cadmium Orange Light (Hue) – this acrylic paint dried to a matt finish and like the Liquitex all the golds were able to be applied over the colour, the Aqua Bronze mixed with water dusted off.

Conclusions on the best gold art medium

• Derwent Metallic paint – for this project the colour did not offer the opacity I was looking for and had a more subtle shimmer.
• Derwent Metallic pencil – would not offer as fine a detail as I was looking for due to the soft core and not very shimmery
• Posca pen – easy to use the fine nibbed pen, it gives a consistent, even line and offers an opaque layer but I wanted to use a medium which could be applied with rigger brush
• Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic ink – Gold (Imit) – I was reminded how beautiful this gold was and it offered a wonderful shimmer, thin enough to be applied with a rigger brush and could be thinned with a little water is necessary
• SAA watercolour – a gold watercolour is a beautiful addition to a watercolour painting and you can keep the works as a true watercolour rather than a mixed media piece if you wanted. On this occasion, due to its more transparent quality it did take more than one layer to achieve the opaque finish I wanted. A beautiful addition to a watercolour range but not what I was looking for in this project.
• Golden Acrylic – this professional range of acrylic offered an excellent shimmer and easy coverage. The consistency of the acrylic paint had to be thinned with water for finer lines. Not for this project but I look forward to using this in future acrylic paintings
• Schmincke Aqua Bronze (water) – this powdered medium is made from real metals and has and exceptional shimmer. This is more suitable to add into a wet paint where the binder in the paint allows for the powder to adhere. The powdered consistency offers organic texture when it is dropped into a wet paint and can be mixed with clear mediums to create an adhesive paint.
• Schmincke Aqua Bronze (gum Arabic) – the same binder as in watercolour paint makes the powder into a stable watercolour paint. You have to really mix the metal powder well into the gum Arabic solution, even then it does not offer a smooth consistency and is grainy but the sparkling results are amazing. It has an exceptional shimmer with more of an organic texture than the other golds

I decided that I wanted to use watercolour for the bright orange red berries, so it was now a case of choosing which gold art medium would work best for the delicate web of veins of the casing, and narrowed it down to the Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Ink which would make the piece mixed media; or the Schmincke Aqua Bronze mixed with Gum Arabic, keeping it as a true watercolour and has a more organic texture.

The FW Acrylic gold ink was easy to apply in one action with the fine rigger brush offering a consistent line and finish with a great shimmer.

The Schmincke Aqua bronze has a grainy texture when mixed with the Gum Arabic and offers an organic finish as the visible metal pigments sit in the binder raising to the surface so each time you dip your brush into the paint you have to stir and mix the solution. But the shine is the best of all the golds with a clean fresh colour and allows for an lively and delicate line.

Which gold art medium do you prefer?

Here are paintings using the FW acrylic gold (left) and the Schmincke Aqua Bronze (right). These tests can be created for a specific purpose as in this case or sometimes if I am struggling with motivation doing these tests will ignite ideas and will suddenly have lots of ideas.

These tests are always useful for reference and you can file these into a fold for the next time you are choosing a gold medium and can quickly select the most suitable; I hope you enjoyed my findings and have fun with you own tests and discoveries. With so many options, choosing the best gold art medium depends on your project’s needs. Which one will you try next?