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Sorting through my photos, I found another recent patina test. As in an earlier post, Tinted patina, it's alcohol ink (stream I believe the name of the colour is) over a so-so verdigris patina in an attempt to boost the colour and cover up ugly spots. Very successful as far as I'm concerned: the ink deepens the colour without hiding the mottled surface or covering the crusty patina. An easy way to save a less than impressive verdigris surface.
Below are the first to tests with a few drops splashed over the patina. For the beetle above, I more or less drenched the stamping in ink to get as intense a colour as possible.
So far I've only tried to add another colour than blue-green to the turquoise patina once. It'd be interesting to test more colours too, but I've just got a few ink bottles so there's not much to choose between.
This looks really nice. The ink enhances the crusty verdigris in a wonderful way. Is the surface "waterproof" or is it necessary to use a protective substance upon the ink?
ReplyDeleteThank you! Just too bad I forgot to take a "before" photo of the beetle for a comparison, but maybe some of the change can be seen in the turquoise tag in the second pic.
DeleteI always seal. Not everyone seems to do it, judging from some tutorials, but alcohol inks can be dissolved by alchohol, e.g. perfume (which is often applied near jewellery), and acetone, which even can be found in body perspiration. So just wearing it can make colours bleed. You just have to make sure the lacquer being used doesn't dissolve the ink too -- I forgot that the first time I made an inked pendant and could do nothing to stop the spray varnish from dissolving my pretty patterned surface... Now I'm better at testing first.
Also, it's always a good idea to seal verdigris. That's not something you want to absorb or rub off on skin and clothes. Plus sealing will keep the patina from changing as it will when exposed to oxygen, salts and humidity.