Gold leaf gilded windows for Farm Rio in Paris

In June I was fortunate enough to be commissioned for a job in Paris. This job was for the Brazilian brand Farm Rio, a luxury clothing store.

This was a huge job which took 10 days in total and used over 500 sheets of genuine gold leaf, which I purchased from a great Parisian supplier Maison Dauvet.

The windows and door design were supplied from the designers of Farm Rio, i then took templates with me over to France and began the project.

I started by hand painting all the outlines in black, this took a few days initially to get the base of the design on all four windows and the door.

Once the black had dried it was onto the fun part...gilding! Gold leaf glass gilding is the process of applying genuine gold onto the inside of glass, to create a mirror finish on the outside, i used 23ct gold for this whole project, double layering the gold as i water gilded. The process is also known as verre eglomise, which is reverse glass gilding.

Once the gild had fully dried i then used a back up black paint and re-painted the entire design onto the back of the gold, this keeps the gold set in place on the glass. Once set, i wiped away the excess gold to reveal the gorgeous golden finish from the outside.

The design is floral, delicate and simple, with the words of the shop, Farm Riom taking centre stage, the door features wording which welcomes you inside, where you will find a gorgeous wall mural hand painted by Bland Design.

Farm Rio opened their new store in Marais, in the 3rd arrondisment in Paris in June, so go check it out if you're over there!

This was an incredible project for me to work on, and to be able to work outside of the UK with gilding was a dream come true - so if anyone wants to commission an artist for more international gold leafing or signwriting please do get in touch! My dream locations to work include Los Angeles, New York or most places in the USA.