"You know anything about chemistry?"
That's what he asked me as I watched him preparing to put a patina on my bronze casting. "A little.." I replied. I don't know a lot about the actual chemistry involved, but I do know a little about how it applies to creating a patina on bronze. But I didn't want to steal any of his joy as he put on his magic show.
He has to heat the raw bronze (which as you can see at this stage looks almost like silver..) with a butane torch because it causes the chemicals to react with the hot bronze and dry nearly instantly. He spins her on a foot-operated turntable to heat the entire piece evenly, and then sprays a simple mixture of chemicals strategically onto the hot metal.
She barely reacts at all. Absorbed in her little book, she ignores the firestorm that envelopes her, and the spinning, and just keeps reading.. And I just kept watching, as the metal slowly began to change from silver to that familiar brown that we call 'bronze'.
The whole purpose of adding a patina to bronze is to age it, which we have come to expect when we think of bronze. Bronze is... bronze! It's supposed to look dark, as if it's a relic from antiquity, but it hasn't always been that way.
The Romans and Greeks preferred their bronzes to be shiny and new looking. And, I can see that, having seen my piece that way.. but I also love the aged look, and the way it gives dimension and character to it.
"You know anything about chemistry?"
That's what he asked me as I watched him preparing to put a patina on my bronze casting. "A little.." I replied. I don't know a lot about the actual chemistry involved, but I do know a little about how it applies to creating a patina on bronze. But I didn't want to steal any of his joy as he put on his magic show.
He has to heat the raw bronze (which as you can see at this stage looks almost like silver..) with a butane torch because it causes the chemicals to react with the hot bronze and dry nearly instantly. He spins her on a foot-operated turntable to heat the entire piece evenly, and then sprays a simple mixture of chemicals strategically onto the hot metal.
She barely reacts at all. Absorbed in her little book, she ignores the firestorm that envelopes her, and the spinning, and just keeps reading.. And I just kept watching, as the metal slowly began to change from silver to that familiar brown that we call 'bronze'.
The whole purpose of adding a patina to bronze is to age it, which we have come to expect when we think of bronze. Bronze is... bronze! It's supposed to look dark, as if it's a relic from antiquity, but it hasn't always been that way.
The Romans and Greeks preferred their bronzes to be shiny and new looking. And, I can see that, having seen my piece that way.. but I also love the aged look, and the way it gives dimension and character to it.