Patina mishap

You remember my valkyrie from this post? The one that I didn't know if I wanted to do something more to or keep as it was as the patina was rather nice. Well, as mentioned in the comments I decided to keep it as it was. All I had to do was seal it. It took a few days to decide so in the meantime the stamping sat on the worktable. When a few new spots of verdigris appeared I decided it was time to brush it off and seal the stamping before it got another, less wanted patina.

So I did it. Using a sealer for patinas. But...

This is what I found when the sealer had dried. It looks like bark covered in bright lichen. Or a loaf of bread suddenly "attacked" by mold... A nice effect in a way, but I didn't want it on this piece! On a piece with an abstract pattern it might look great, but here I feel it obscures the motif too much -- and it doesn't look like an old artifact either so I can't go for the "just excavated and ancient" style either.

I don't know why it happened. Maybe I'd not rinse off the vinegar enough or neutralised it. Maybe there where spots of verdigris that accelerated when mixed with the wet waterbased sealant (one that you brush on, not spray sealer/lacquer). Either way I ruined my patina.

What remains to do now is to choose whether to keep the piece like this or do something about it. It's not like it can get more ruined... (I've thought about adding crackle glaze on patinas, something along the lines of Tammy Tutterows alcohol ink crackled metal pendants pehaps, so maybe I'll do that on this one, but I'm not sure. 

In the meantime I guess I'll have to just enjoy the colours. There's a nice mix of green and turquoise in places and patina at the bottom is pretty too.