Thanks Jim, Micheal and Marta for coming up with some very interesting points. I just found a company on the web called Reade Advanced Materials. They offer diamond and gold dust as well as platinum, quartz, titanium oxide/dioxide and many other powders. I wonder if it would be safe to use these industrial powders as paint pigments. Can you imagine? Flake white step aside, platinum is here.

P.S. try this address: www.reade.com/home_index.html

Michael,
I think what you're saying is that you would like to use the pearlescent paint for highlights for a 3-d effect.
When I look at the highlights on a Rembrandt it apears that there is a thin dark outline around the highlights. This shows up in reproductions although I can't tell if the dark is a glaze or a shadow of the raised impasto. In the book "Rembrandt -the painter at work", which is what got me started on all this, it is mentioned that quartz was found in the under painting as well as the highlights. This, it is said, is the reason that the entire painting has the "glow". Unfortunately, I don't have the book with me as I write. I also agree that It won't do much to make a bad painting better.

I thought this was interesting information on Gamblin Metalic Paints from their web site:

GAMBLIN ARTISTS COLORS
ARTIST GRADE METALS

Rich Gold: Made from real metal powder and an alkyd resin binder. Rich Gold is rose gold. Use it in place of gold leaf, painted over Venetian Red. Excellent for painting frames. Can be mixed with transparent oil colors or thinned out and used for a sparkling glaze. Thin with a combination of Galkyds and OMS. Do not thin with turpentine.

Pigment: Bronze powder(PM 2)
Vehicle: Oil Modified Alkyd Resin
Lightfastness I Series 4
OPAQUE

Pale Gold: Made from real metal powder and an alkyd resin binder. Pale Gold is green gold. To use it in place of gold leaf, paint over Olive Green. Excellent for painting frames. Can be mixed with transparent oil colors or thinned out and used for a sparkling glaze. Thin with a combination of Galkyds and OMS. Do not thin with turpentine.

Pigment: Bronze powder(PM 2)
Vehicle: Oil Modified Alkyd Resin
Lightfastness I Series 4
OPAQUE

Copper: Made from real metal powder and an alkyd resin binder. Copper looks like crushed pennies. Excellent for painting frames. Can be mixed with transparent oil colors or thinned out and used for a sparkling glaze. Thin with a combination of Galkyds and OMS. Do not thin with turpentine.

Pigment: Copper powder(PM 2)
Vehicle: Oil Modified Alkyd Resin
Lightfastness I Series 4
OPAQUE

Silver: Made from real metal pigment and an alkyd resin binder. Excellent for painting frames. Can be mixed with transparent oil colors or thinned out and used for a sparkling glaze. Extend with Galkyds. Thin with a combination of Galkyds and OMS. Do not thin with turpentine.

Pigment: Aluminum powder(PM 1)
Vehicle: Oil Modified Alkyd Resin
Lightfastness I Series 4
OPAQUE

When I was sixteen, I painted a portrait of an old shepherd-like man with a rough burlap-like shirt. I put cheese-cloth on the wet paint, and painted over it to create fabric like consistency. I sold the painting for enough money to put half down on my first car! (hee-hee, it was a '56 Buick). I guess I could attach it. The image was out of my head - the hands were those of my paternal grandfather. This was scanned from a very poor polaroid shot.

(Maybe this is me in a couple of years!)

Utrecht has marble dust (Item No: 36869) for sale online at: http://www.utrechtart.com/

I'm going to try it and will post results.

As far as adding "shiny" things to paint, it isn't necessary. Objects will look more convincing if you learn to paint in plain old oils....

Sorry I don't have a closeup of the sleeve on this Frans Hals painting...it is full of shiny gold.

And here are some shiny gold objects...it is not what you use to paint them, but how you paint them that makes them look convincing.

Karin,

The Hals painting has something gold/metallic in the sleeve or is painted to look like gold?

It is painted to look like gold and actually (to my eye at least) looks better than the real stuff - i.e., the "shine" and "sparkle" is idealized by the artist.

To paint a shiny object convincingly, the contrast between light and shadow is often dramatic.

In Medieval times, gold leaf was applied to a lot of Icons. It does not fool the eye in that it looks as if it is part of the painting...it just looks like gold leaf added onto the surface as a decoration.

What I mean to say is that although applied shiny gold leaf is beautiful, it is not part of the "illusion" of the painted surface.

The detail alone can dazzle on this painting and I for one love to paint shiney gold in plain old oils. Why you seem to be ignoring the Rembrandt factor is beyond me Karin. In blazing saddles you are going to rush ahead into dangerous territory using the notoriously toxic marble powder. Pardon me for scolding but, why not just stick with what you've got going so far?

Lon, your painting technique in the above example seems to have the Rembrandt feel with the dramatic contrast and dark background. I have to mention that there is something extra in a Rembrandt. Yes, of course, his skill and technique in painting shiney objects was exceptional, surpassing anyone else.
Also, it has been suggested by many (none of our group that I recall) that anyone wishing to pursue the specialty of oil portraiture must study Rembrandt. Many of his later portraits are as complicated as calculus, even the ones that look simple.
But like it or not his paintings glow, and jump out at the veiwer. Some more than others.
It's more than technique. You probably have to see it in real life to know what I mean.