For this painting I rubbed off patches of the gold foil background to expose the brown stained wood beneath for a "rusted" effect.
I am realizing these first three paintings all use lots of transparency and reflection, two effects which unfortunately don't show up so well in photos!
The paper with the handwriting on the lower half of the painting has a history. I bought it off the street from a drunken man in Mexico a few years ago. He was walking out of an antique/junk shop in San Miguel de Allende as I was walking in, weaving a bit and carrying a sheaf of papers he apparently had tried to sell to the shop. I don't know what the documents say, but they are beautiful - written in Spanish in an old-fashioned ink script on embossed letterhead.