Recently I was asked to create an image of Our Lady of Walsingham.  It was delightful to experiment with a new technique I was dying to try.  After sketching an image of Our Lady onto a gessoed wood panel, I panted the panel with a layer of acrylic paint and scratched designs into the surface.  Once the acrylic paint dried, I was able to paint a layer of gold leaf adhesive size.

I applied gold leaf over the resulting surface and found that the texture remained quite distinct.

The finished painting caught the light in such a way that the matte portion of the painting was nicely framed by the gold background.

I was quite happy with the finished result and would try the experiment again.  It takes a little while to get the hang of how the different materials cooperate, but the end effect of combining acrylic, gold leaf, and oil is stunning.