Tuesday, January 28, 2014

More Results of Patina Color Experimentation


Filigree Leaf Earrings with orange "rust", yellow "topaz", and green "emerald" patina
I am hosting a patina blog hop that takes place on Feb. 29.  Ten jewelry designers are working with the same natural brass compass and coloring them.  They will then show the compass in a jewelry design.  To prepare for this I have been experimenting with my new patina sets and mixing colors from different sets of the Ranger patinas.  For the filigree leaves above I combined two colors from the Faded Pickup set with 1 from Rusted hardware.  I hung the patinaed leaves on gold colored ear wires with a gold bead to highlight the gold color of the metal that shows through the patina.
Natural Brass Pieces
You can see the natural brass leaf that I started with in the above photo.  Also, I put patina on natural brass rectangles with flowers cut out.  One of them is pictured above.  I  created another set of earrings with the floral rectangles.
3 inch long flower earrings available for purchase in my Etsy store
I hand patinaed these flowers in a lovely aged green, orange and yellow. I then hung them on gold colored ear wires with a gold bead to highlight the gold color of the metal that shows through the patina.

 I love the cutouts in the rectangle.  These earrings remind me of sunflowers.

I had another set of earrings that I was working on.  In my excitement to put patina on them, I forgot to wash them before beginning and the grease from my hands shows on them.  I intend to take some steel wool to them and start over. 

To prepare my piece for the patina blog hop, I also purchased some Vintaj Glaze. The Vintaj Glaze can be used as a sealer (to preserve the patina color), or as a patina extender to dilute your colors and create a washed look. To achieve this look, I often use the ratio of 1 part Patina to 3 parts color.  While the patinas are permanent on metal and don’t require sealing,  everything has a tendency to lighten with wear over time. To preserve the look of your patina, seal your piece with a glaze after it finishes drying and after using the metal reliefing block. I sealed both of my earrings.

I found a wonderful page on Pinterest that is a great resource for learning how to put color on metals.  It is located at http://www.pinterest.com/karlawebb/jewelry-making-color-patina-ink-transfers/

I am pleased with my earrings.  What are your thoughts on them?


4 comments:

  1. I love those leaf earrings. And I was glad to read about the sealing. I've started working on my design. Hope it turns out like I want. I haven't been happy with any patina I've done yet, but maybe this one will turn out better. Thanks for the link, too. I will watch that before I start my patina.

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  2. I just love your earrings. And I do have to say that you are being so inspiring. I think that I will spend the weekend locked up in my studio taking the classes I won and playing with patina as a reward.

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  3. I love those earrings! The color is gorgeous.

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  4. Your color are beautiful. I have been playing around with the compass. I can't wait until the reveal and hop!

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