Patina on patina

Do you remember this brass stamping that I showed back in August when experimenting with patinating and vinegar etching some brass? I wasn't that fond of it, even after having polished it a bit and added some colour (mostly alcohol inks and then a few dabs of acrylic paint on that).

Well, at the end of February -- as you can read here -- I finally got around to trying out that peanut oil patina I'd wanted to test for ages. Already then I thought about adding some torched oil patina to the stamping as it was in my mind already ruined so what not just keep playing around with it. For a couple of different reasons it didn't happen. I had brushed on some oil (rapeseed, not peanut), but then had to let it just sit there.

Today, I picked up the stamping on the cluttered worktable and torched it. It was like being back in chemistry class as the copper salts from what remained of the original verdigris patina coloured the flame green (it's the only laboration I remember from chemistry, burning various metal salts, which made the flames turn a rainbow of colours).

The result was a colourful heat patina on a very tortured piece of brass. You can have a lot of fun with a simple little butane torch (or in my case a Dremel Versatip, a kind of "multi heat tool").

If you wonder about the background on which the lady stamping is sitting, it's a rusty old steel garbage can belonging to my dad, who use it to burn rubbish. The white is actually a slab of paint from when it was used as table leg when he painted whatever it was he had made then (probably the revamped hammock swing). It has endured heat as well as some really tough weather as it sits outdoors around the year. Which means that the lid has a lovely rusty patina nowadays.

PS! I'm not a very active blogger at the moment. Nor an active anything else (still haven't gotten through the suddenly spring blog hop and don't respond much on blog comments, I fear). I hope to catch up a bit more this week -- after having done my work as a jewellery design contest judge, which is what I'm focusing on right now -- but I better not promise anything or I'll just feel stressed about not finishing what ever I promise in time. Just wanted to say I haven't forgotten anyone or anything like that. And I always read and appreciate blog comments even when it doesn't look like Ido.