How To Paint Gold?

How to paint gold?...well, I have seen students,  and myself, crumble at times...this was today's effort  and  a few golden oldies from a few weeks past. Yesterday this cast wasn't looking so golden.

So how to paint gold? Concentrate very hard around subtle shifts of value. Don't paint the mid-value, base too light on the light side of the form, or you will have no place to add the ZING later. Look for green and purples in the shadow sides. Anything other than yellow. Block-in the light side with a dullish yellow like raw sienna, then start building up the gold with, say,  a bright cad. lemon yellow and white mixed with a very light clean cool green. Think GOLD very last.

The most common problem I see watching students paint gold - and myself included - is we try to paint gold too fast, and too darn yellow.

We are all students of GOLD.