Burnishing metalic pigment
Channel: Dirty Blue Tube
Date: 2022-09-03

Did you know that you can make certain watercolor paint look like real shiny metal? This technique is called burnishing and it’s used during the proces of gilding (with gold leaf) and also used as a finishing or blending technique with colored pencils. But it’s also done with woodwork and leather. Burnishing with watercolors can only be done with paints that contain actual metal shimmers. So mica won’t give you the desired effect. 

In this demo I use a metal gold pigment. The main metal in this is aluminium.  The tool I use for this is an agate burnisher.As you can see, where the paint first starts as a ‘’regular’’ shimmer, it changes its appearance when burnished. The paper loses its texture so be careful with that. However, your paint, where burnished, will look as shiny as a polished piece of metal! The more pigment particles are on the paper, the better the result. I put on quite one thick first layer but layering thin layers on top of each other will help even better to get a good coat of pigments before you start the burnishing process. Since the texture will be lost and will have some influence on the result, hot pressed watercolor paper would be ideal. 

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