Tricolor vases

Most of our patinas are solid colors all over a given vase or wallpiece part, but we have recently started doing more painterly styles of finish on our work by patinaing a base color over the whole piece, but then, instead of putting a second layer over the whole thing, brushing the second layer (and sometimes a third layer) only over part of the piece. This can be done in a careful pattern as we do with our square-in-square patinas (mostly on our wall clocks) or it can be done more organically.

One of the styles of more organic multi-color brushwork we call Tricolor. This uses the three colors of Black Ochre, but only the first layer – blue-green – covers the whole vase. It is followed by a layer of brown (to form the color we call Ochre) coming up near the top of the vase, and then a layer of black patina coming up not quite as far. Until this year, we only did this patina on the Smokestack vases, where it was probably the most common patina we sold. (The example shown on Artful Home has the brown all blended in under the black, so it looks almost like it’s just two colors.) But this January David decided to try putting the Tricolor patina on some other styles of vase, and the effects are stunning!

medium and extra-small round vases

medium and extra-small round vases

We will be offering this now as a standard color on several types of vase.

Burnt mottle patina

burnt mottle

burnt mottle on a large square vase

lgsq-mottle-20150710-DSCN6633_6x8Here’s a great example of the burnt mottle patina on a large square vase that will soon be on its way to the Store at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.

New flower sconce

I’ve just created a new style of flower sconce – or wall-hanging flower vase. New flower sconce with hibiscus

Unlike my original – and still popular – folded flower sconces, this one is all curved lines, and was inspired by the drawings I did leading up to my wallpieces RCB 11.01, RCB 11.02, and especially RCB 11.04

Vases going to Florida (and so are we)

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Today we're shipping a lovely set of round vases off to Gallery Morada in the Florida Keys. They have sold our vases for years, and are just now starting to show our wallpieces. The wallpieces they're showing are listed on our site here (only one so far, but another will be on its way soon).

It so happens we're also on our way to Florida for David's father's 90th birthday next week. We will be back to normal operations on 30 or 31 January, in time to prepare for ACC Baltimore, where we will be showing from 24-26 February, in booth 1002A.

A full set of antique blue lens vases

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I just made a full set of lens vases in the color we call antique blue. Antique blue contains ultramarine pigment – the only pigment we use in any of our patinas – in a copper nitrate base. Ultramarine pigment was once derived from grinding up lapis lazuli, and the look of the patina – especially in this set of vases – reflects that origin. This set of vases is on its way to Mowen Solinsky Gallery.

Burnt mottle

Burnt mottle

 

Here David’s working on a burnt mottle patina on one of two custom pieces. The piece has been buried in sawdust with a recipe of ammonia, water, salt and ammonium chloride for a few days until it is colored all over with blue-greens and browns. Sometimes we leave the piece in that state, after drying and cleaning it, but sometimes we want less green and more browns and golds so we burn the surface with a big torch.

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Two Brown Copper Lens Vases

Here are two small lens vases I made in brown heat-treated copper for a special order (I made two to provide a choice of colors).

Ikebana vases bound for Japan!

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There can be little more gratifying than to have the Lens Vases I designed for ikebana flower arrangement requested by an interior designer in Japan. This set is on its way now to Interculture Art in Tokyo. We have worked with Interculture Art in the past, and they have placed several of our wallpieces and many vases. David originally designed the Part Scrap Round Vase, a variant on our classic Round Vases based on a request from Interculture Art in 1999.

Slab vase with square-in-square patina

With few exceptions, we tend to patina our vases one solid color. Earlier this year, one of our gallery owners, Brian Farrell of Milward Farrell Fine Art was looking at our modular wallpieces and requested one of our slab vases with the square-in-square pattern usually used only on the modular wallpiece panels. We instantly agreed this would be a good idea, and this is the result. We will offer these in future in different patterns of patina colors within the square-in-square style.

Round Vase Photo Shoot

We're making up all the colors of round vases and photographing them. Here's the setup Reed's using for the photography.