December Meeting and Copper Coloring Workshop

On this first snowy day of the season, eight of us gathered at Peggy’s house to talk about various methods of putting color on metal, and to try out one of those methods – colored pencil on copper. Thanks to – Caroline, Lucia Briggs, Sandra, Bodil, Naomi, new member Molly, and Ellen Kreiger, for braving the elements.

Peggy, who is also quite new at this, showed 10 of her first experimental samples. All begin with roughing up the metal to give it some tooth – using super coarse sandpaper, a mizzie wheel on a flex shaft, a steel wire “Matting Brush” on a bench lathe, a roller printed or hammered texture. This step is followed by a liver of sulfur dip and/or a coat or two of white or black gesso – or neither! Then comes the fun part: applying the colored pencils! At the end of the process the pieces were sprayed with matte acrylic to fix the colors.

Peggy also showed her first finished projects: napkin rings and earrings:

Before we began coloring our metal, Naomi and Sandra showed us some examples of other metal coloring techniques they’ve used: Heat-coloring, liver of sulfur coloring and the ever-popular ammonia and cat litter method! (No laughing, it produces beautiful results!):

This next piece is by nationally-known artist Deb Karash. She is known for this technique:

Finally, the rest of the group gave it a shot –and got some very interesting results – proving to us all that there are many roads to explore with this. I think we all are excited to do more. This is a wonderfully spontaneous way to get color into our work. Very liberating!!

See you all next time!