I showed my “finished” challenge piece here several weeks ago. But after I had lived with it for a while, I decided it needed something more. If you follow my personal blog or are a member of the forum, you’ll have seen part of this before.

This is how the piece looked when I last posted it. It just needed a better focal area/point.

So I decided I wanted to try adding gold leaf. Before I went ahead and put it on, I thought I would try putting the photo into Photoshop and add some gold to see if I liked it. I took another photo of a trial bit of gold leaf added to felt and then manipulated that in Photoshop into a “stamp”. I then added that “stamp” over the original photo in several places. I fooled around with layers until I got it to resemble gold leafing. So then I polled everyone who reads my blog and on the forum. Most thought the gold was a good addition. Some thought that there should be less gold than pictured above. I agreed with that assessment.

This is a poor photo but can you see the white? That is gel medium applied to the felt through a screen print. It is nice that you can see it when it is applied because after it dries, it practically disappears. After drying, gold leaf can be applied.

And here is my challenge piece with gold leaf added. What do you think? I really like it. It looks better in person as the photo doesn’t really do it justice. It is hard to take good photos of fiber but then adding the gold leaf added a whole different dimension to the photo taking process – reflective, shiny stuff.

I really like how it turned out. The contrast of the gold leaf to the matte surface of the wool is amazing.

So now I still have to come up with a name. Nothing has come to me yet. Any suggestions? I also think that I will mount this one on a canvas so it looks more like a painting.