Thanks for the detailed response John, and sorry I was so late in replying (I’ve just got back from a 4 day break).
Lol, it sounds like you had a similar experience to me. I too have been admiring Anthony’s work online since 2011 and wondering how he did it; and as well as that I was lucky enough to receive a lot of free advice from him.
If I can I’d like to ask you a further question about the dollar bill work (here Trump L'oeil for anyone else reading this thread).
I appreciate you may not want to give your secrets away, so please don’t feel obliged to. But I’m interested in how you did the black and white mosaic work on the edges of the bill, in which certain words are written. i.e. the black background with white markings on it.
If I were to attempt to paint that, I think I would use one of two techniques: either 1) paint in everything white and let it dry; then layer some black on top and etch out the patterns with a needle/nail head etc. Tough because usually the white will fail to come through and become dirty if the top layer is black.
A second possibility, which is perhaps preferable, is to again paint a white layer and let it dry. Then paint a black layer on top and let it get dry(ish). Then put a piece of paper over the top of it and using a mechanical pencil say, etch over the surface. This has the effect that the pencil picks off bits of dryish black paint from the surface, leaving the white pattern to emerge beneath.
The second method also has problems in my experience. Plus these techniques, are often hard to pull of with a colour like white because it is so easily contaminated.
Anyway I would be interested in some of the techniques you might have used, if you are willing to give me any clues!