Also from looking at monuments like Still Water, Nic Fiddian-Green's iconic sculpture of a horse's head drinking, which has a beautiful patina to it. Sam: My first contact was from looking at the patinas on old copper coins, they used to all have different patinas to them.How did you start learning about the art of patinating
But the natural conditions will always affect how the sculpture will look over a long period of time. That is why we seal patinated pieces with bees wax. With time, the metal will do its own thing and the patina will change. You have to remember that once we have finished the patina and the sculpture goes to the client, the weather conditions will change the finish and the look of the sculpture is going to start changing with nature. Because we are manipulating natural chemical reactions, so we are never on the driving seat, we are just giving directions.
We also need to remain humble, because the process can go wrong at any point and we need to have the drive to learn from mistakes and improve with them. You need to learn and develop your skill in order to create different and more interesting finishes. We don't follow exactly the same process every time. With the finishes we offer, you do have master them at first. The more passionate you are, the more you will learn, which helps you become an expert. The more you learn, the more there is to learn. What do you think are the key skills required? So if it was raining on the first day, we need to make our environment more humid for the final patination. Usually, at this stage, the weather conditions will have changed, so we need to replicate the conditions of the original patinating. The whole process (plus gilding the interior) is applied to the two separate halves of the Mantle and then we join the two halves together, carefully matching the colours of the patina to hide the join. The first chemical we use acts as a base layer and it gives the piece a dark appearance after that has dried, the second stage is to apply a chemical mix (DH secret source) which brings out the blue verdigris colours then we buff the surface to give it a protective shine. The point of sandblasting is to clean and open the metal so that it accepts the chemicals. It depends on the finish as each finish will have a different process.īut – to use the Mantle sculpture as an example – the first stage of the patination is to sandblast the outside which is the part that gets the blue verdigris patina. What are the stages you need to go through? It is a very niche knowledge that each staff member needs to learn by doing. So good patinations don't come from talent, but from in-depth understanding.
#Bronze patina urine trial
In the past people had recipes for patination using certain compounds found in nature like stallions urine, or even drunk people’s urine! People started using these materials for door handles and other items as they tried to understand why materials like copper and bronze were tarnishing.īy trial and error and by changing the processes, people acquired the know-how we have today. But it took years and years of patinating to make us experts in this art. Here at David Harber, we know what effect the different variables will have on how a patination is going to look because the knowledge is there.
There's a difference between knowing the process by following the instruction on a guide book, and having a real feel for patination. With the right conditions, the patina will occur as it is meant to occur. It is about knowing which variables will affect the patina. There are a lot of variables that may affect the final result: temperature, moisture, humidity, sunlight, moisture on the brush, how quickly you work, how much time is left between applying layers, contamination from other materials such as dust or sand. Conditionsįor a patination to be beautiful, the conditions need to be right. What are the key elements behind beautiful patination? 1.
0 kommentar(er)
