Saturday, October 30, 2010

SURFACE

Acid etched pieces by my students last week.

Metal pieces colored with assorted dye oxide patinas, solvent oxides, pastes and simple flux and heat patina.

I've been playing a lot with the surface of metals again lately. Creating texture with hammers, etching patterns with ferric chloride, coloring with enamels and heat patinas and now creating color with dye-oxide patinas. I will be offering an all day class called the Surface Embellishment On Metals on November 14th at Bead Haven. We will be using ammonia based verdigris solution on copper, dye-oxides, Gilder's Paste (a type of colored wax), flux and heat patina on copper, and other techniques as well. I'll have tools and supplies for riveting as well, so we practice up on building our patinaed parts into some finished jewelry as time allows. The class is limited in size and there are just a couple of spots left, so please call Bead Haven if you are interested.
In December I'm hoping to do an acid etching class where we will make copper texture plates for texturing PMC. While there are countless rubber stamps for this purpose, it's really nice to be able to make your own textures that no one else will have. There is no better way to distinguish your work from others. I'll let you know when this gets added to the Bead Haven calendar.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I know aluminium alloys and aluminium bronze are so versatile. My dad uses them at home and I can say that through your seminar, I'll be able to use it as an art. Thanks for sharing such crafts. I can't wait to join you!

Anonymous said...

I love your work. The dye oxide patinas add depth and color without actually painting over the metal.

Just out of curiosity, what do you use as a resist in etching with ferric chloride?

Cristina Leonard said...

jtbmetaldesigns,
Thanks for the kind words. I really like black Sharpie marker for my resist.