Unconventional Ornament

[SarahLadd]

Hi everyone,

I'm here with some unconventional ornament. My husband plays this card game. I guess it is very "trendy" to make changes to the cards and do your own art on them... if you are good. I did this card in bold american scroll, and titled it "Hand Engraver's Ornamental Sol Ring". It's not your typical hand engraver's fare but I thought some here might enjoy it.

I painted this card with a very tiny paintbrush by hand under my microscope. It took me the afternoon, but only after a trial card that ended in failure, that I learned a lot from.



Acrylics, glitter dipping ink, 24k gold leaf, UV cure glue, transparent starburst holographic effect film, card.

 

[Masgrimes]

The gold is pretty cool, Sarah! I'm assuming you used the UV glue as the size for that?

—David

 

[SarahLadd]

The gold is pretty cool, Sarah! I'm assuming you used the UV glue as the size for that?

—David

Actually, no, that's for the holographic effect on the star. I used transfer solution for the gold ring. It works okay. Several layers are needed before you get it looking solid. I have gold size, I tried it on a different card, it works okay, sort of like using rubber cement or eyelash glue. It's hard to control for fine lines, but transfer solution is just about impossible to control. I'm messing around with all kinds of products to see what does what. Here is a link to an album that contains moving picture.

http://imgur.com/a/YynddrI

The UV glue has volume. It does, however, have this interesting surface tension property where if you let it sit for a little bit, your brush strokes disappear and the applied glue area gets glassy and smooth. You can cure it when you are ready to. A certain amount is somewhat required to get a good grab on the holo films.

http://imgur.com/a/6jHlirz

Thus far, aside from the glow in the dark card I did, the thickness that ends up being added to provide that effect has been deemed "tournament legal".

 

[Masgrimes]

Very cool! You you might enjoy working with more traditional illumination/gilding techniques if you continue with the gold work. There are lots of flat gilding approaches that can give you a mirror finish in one shot with gold leaf.

There's also burnishing, if the UV glue can take it.

Awesome work across the board. Thanks for sharing.

—David

 

[SarahLadd]

Very cool! You you might enjoy working with more traditional illumination/gilding techniques if you continue with the gold work. There are lots of flat gilding approaches that can give you a mirror finish in one shot with gold leaf.

There's also burnishing, if the UV glue can take it.

Awesome work across the board. Thanks for sharing.

—David

Yeah it can. The glue cures hard. I use an agate burnisher to apply the holographic film actually. It works best that way.

I'll probably look into a few more ways to get gold on cards. The biggest problem I've run into so far is how to mask the card off effectively when applying it. I ruined an entire card that I'd spent several hours painting, because I thought that the gold leaf would only stick to the areas with glue. I was wrong. The entire sheet stuck to the card, and it was unrecoverable.

 

[Masgrimes]

Yeah it can. The glue cures hard. I use an agate burnisher to apply the holographic film actually. It works best that way.

I'll probably look into a few more ways to get gold on cards. The biggest problem I've run into so far is how to mask the card off effectively when applying it. I ruined an entire card that I'd spent several hours painting, because I thought that the gold leaf would only stick to the areas with glue. I was wrong. The entire sheet stuck to the card, and it was unrecoverable.

Yea, unfortunately, your hand oil is a great size and the gold will love to stick to it. I had a sign guy rub his nose and stick some gold to my T-square to show me how effective nose oil can be as a size. That gold is still there nearly five years later.

If you can get the card relatively clean and then handle it with gloves while you lay your size and gold that might work. In general, I'd go gold first, then paint.

-David

 

[SarahLadd]

Yea, unfortunately, your hand oil is a great size and the gold will love to stick to it. I had a sign guy rub his nose and stick some gold to my T-square to show me how effective nose oil can be as a size. That gold is still there nearly five years later.

If you can get the card relatively clean and then handle it with gloves while you lay your size and gold that might work. In general, I'd go gold first, then paint.

-David

I actually discovered a fast and easy way to make sure that the surface is completely free of anything that might grab the gold leaf: workable fixative. Spray a layer down right before applying glue. I probably could have gotten away with using traditional size had I done this step the last time. I learned, though!

 

[monk]

yet another "first for the forum. another opportunity for adventure in the art of doing the unique. that work is so cool !!

 

[monk]

why not do an entire deck ? you could retire while you're still young & beautiful !!

 

[SarahLadd]

why not do an entire deck ? you could retire while you're still young & beautiful !!

Ah.. Unlikely that I could make money doctoring magic the gathering cards lol. That said it is on ebay! you can buy it if you want it! lol

 

[Travis_UT]

Very cool and thanks for sharing. I always like to see others people work, especially when it uses out of the box thinking. We have all seen a million scrolls on knives and guns. I have actually considered making a set of playing cards, but coming up with my own designs to embellish the cards.

 

[monk]

Ah.. Unlikely that I could make money doctoring magic the gathering cards lol. That said it is on ebay! you can buy it if you want it! lol

in my ignorance, if you will, i thought they all were playing cards. your work is quite interesting.

 

[SarahLadd]

in my ignorance, if you will, i thought they all were playing cards. your work is quite interesting.

I mean... They are playing cards, but not like, for poker haha. There are a few artists that can fetch up to a thousand dollars for one single painted magic the gathering card. Many people make a whole ass living painting magic the gathering cards. The communities, the number of people doing it, the money to be made in it, it's easily 5 times the magnitude of the hand engraving community. It's competitive, catty and intense. After researching more about it, I really didn't know that there was such a rabid collection of people both making artwork on these cards and buying them. Magic the gathering is already not a cheap game to play.... if you can afford to play the game you can probably also afford to buy custom modified painted cards for your deck, too. A commander deck is 100 cards. You said "paint a deck and retire"... 100 cards... Ahh! wow. Yeah I mean I suppose but I think unless I was Eric Klug I won't be retiring on a deck.

 

[SarahLadd]

I am designing another card now...

I don't have anything to work on... nothing to engrave.

 

[PjLeigh143]

This is quite interesting! How do you decide which designs to put on cards? Do you struggle with using gold or some other alternative, or do you use gold simply to increase the value? What is your most favorite card that you have done?

 

[SarahLadd]

New in Unconventional Ornament:

"Hand Engraver's Distant Star".

 

[PjLeigh143]

I love the iridescent shiny look!