Ceramic sculpture with bronze finish

I love to play with different finishing techniques. I was taught a simple technique how to make ceramics look like bronze, copper  or pewter. You simply mix copper or bronze filler with matte varnish and paint it on bisque fired clay (It can also be used on plaster).

This is a sculpture with a strip of Botz brush-on gold glaze down the middle and on top.  

I mixed bronze filler with varnish and painted a rather thick layer on top of the bisque fired clay body.

After it had dried properly (I gave it 24 hours) I mixed some graphite powder with matte varnish and painted that on top. And then I rubbed back through the graphite layer to expose the bronze….I used fine steel wool and a face mask because it gets very dusty and bronze dust is not the best  thing to inhale…

This is Oannes, a Babylonian  amphibian God. I used some Cupra to achieve a verdigris effect for the fish and the bib.

This is ‘Swift’, a male torso on an oak plinth – I think the graphite layer was a bit thick which is why the piece came up so dark. I did spend hours rubbing back with steel wool.

To see more of my work, please visit  www.annakeiller.com

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