More copper

Last week, I promised some pictures of the fired copper - sans pickle, sans patina - so you could see it in all it's fine shiny loveliness. However, I just can't leave well enough alone. I really can't help but patina things. I use a lot of texture in my pieces, and texture lends itself well to patina.

These are the art clay copper blossoms that I made the other day. I decided that I would try giving them an ammonia treatment to try to get the verdigris to develop. It started to, but after 2 days, and not a huge amount of progress, I pulled them out, and decided to torch fire them to get a heat patina as well. Now, I really like them :-)

Here are the blossoms taken on my iphone (excuse the pic)

And here they are in all their patina-ed glory:


Here's what I tried to get the green/blue verdigris to develop. I used a margarine container, and poked two little holes in the lid. Using some scrap wire, I strung on all of the blossoms, and hung them close to the lid. In the actual container, I filled the bottom with about a half inch of ammonia. (don't breathe in the fumes!!). Put the lid on (with the suspended copper), and let sit for at least 24 hours (or longer).

That all said, mine didn't really work all that well. I don't know if I left out some important step, or if my ammonia wasn't all that strong. I was getting a bluish hue, but not a thick crusty coating of verdigris. I'll have to try again on something else.