My last class of the fall session at The Art League was tonight. I plan to return in January for the copper foil class so I can learn to make lamps. I shall not rest until I have built a kickass stained-glass lamp. Probably not then either.

All I had to do tonight was to apply patina to the solder joints and to the zinc frame of the crocus panel. The lead polishes down, so to speak, to a dark pewter-grey color, but the zinc and the solder remain shiny. That's what patina is for: to make everything a nice uniform color. In theory, anyway. It's tougher in practice. Particularly in cases like mine, with a zinc frame with a leaded piece---the two metals require differently composed patinas, and then the color match will never be perfect.

I am not quite done with the patina work. My right hand still hurts if I use it a certain way, though not as much as it did. I thought the patina would be fluff work, i.e. non-painful, and it more or less was except for having to shine up the zinc with steel wool beforehand. That hurt, oh yes. So I didn't have it in me to finish everything tonight. I did patina all the inside solder joints---those that don't touch the zinc frame---and they turned out nicely. No more glaring silver solder joining up duller grey lead. And I did do the zinc patina. All that remains is to apply lead patina to the solder joints that meet the zinc... tomorrow, I think. You can see the difference between the shiny solder and the black zinc patina below.



The next, and last, photo you will see of the crocus panel will show it hanging over the bed in the guest bedroom. I suppose I should take a few moments to reflect on how nice it is to learn new things and have a creative outlet again and know how to make something, anything, with my own two hands... but I'm impatient to start building some transoms already, so the navelgazing will wait for some other time.

Posted by Michelle on November 19, 2002 09:19 PM