Piece #120 – Oak & Copper Patina Pedestal Bowl – 8″ diam by 5″ tall – Sold
My sister-in-law gave me some really hard white wood with very little grain. It was pretty dry, but when I cut the blank it developed small checks over night. I had been wanting to try something different and thought this piece would be a good candidate. It took me about two hours to shape and hollow it out. After I sanded it down to 400 grit sand paper I sealed it with S.W. sanding sealer. Next I put on two coats of red acrylic paint, sanding with 220 between coats. I then randomly applied streaks of black acrylic paint after the red dried. Two coats of spar poly followed. I let all this cure for about a week.
Now the fun part. I sized the top half with gilding size. When it set up, I applied copper leaf and Dutch Metal leaf (fool’s gold) in random spots covering about 90% of the acrylic paint. In random spots under parts of the metal leaf, I laid down small swaths of sewing tulle and nylon string. After the sizing dried, I pulled off the sewing tulle and nylon strings exposing more of the red and black acrylic paint in some really cool patterns. I repeated the process on the bottom half of the piece and let the whole thing set a couple of days.
To make the piece look old and weathered I followed a process I learned from David Marks. Using two different chemicals, chemical proof rubber gloves, tissue paper, cheese cloth, a spray water bottle and two small disposable paint brushes, I subjected the metal leaf to a chemical reaction. By the way, I hated chemistry class in school. But this was really cool. After the chemicals did their thing I very, very carefully dabbed the piece dry and set it aside for about a week. The final step was three coats of wipe on poly, sanding between coats with 320 grit paper.
This whole process was really, really time consuming. Was it worth it? Some of my critics love it and some hate it. No one seems to be neutral. What do you think? I love it! In the end, that’s all that matters. I will definitely be doing it again.
I sold this piece on June 4th at the Lenoir City Arts and Crafts Festival.