A Rusty Vase That Got Better When It Went Wrong
I started with a clear image, bronze and copper running down a tall form with rust underneath, as if it had been left out for twenty years and then brought in by someone who liked it too much to throw away.
The form is a ten inch beech faux hollow form, made in two parts from the same blank so grain and moisture stay matched. Beech was the right timber here not for its figure but because it has almost none, pale and even, low in tannin, so the iron activator finds only the metal in the paint. Proportion mattered more than anything, with the widest point carried high toward the shoulder so the form does not sit like a jar. Once paint goes on there is nowhere to hide.
The iron paint worked. That was the annoying bit. The rust did what rust does, and with the other paints not stirred enough the brown became overpowering and nothing else got a look in. I left it a day to check whether it was wrong or just unfamiliar. It was wrong.
Instead of stripping it, I cut a couple of grooves and worked a textured band around the middle with the Arbortech mini grinder. That breaks the surface so the eye has somewhere to land, and the brown becomes a background. Primer, two coats of bronze, then patina, held in one band where it reads as deliberate.
I like it now. It is a better piece than the one I set out to make, for the simple reason that the first version failed. If the copper had run exactly as pictured it would have been fine and I would have forgotten it inside a month. Being willing to say this is not right while it is still in your hands is worth more than getting it right first time.
Watch the film for the full build, the hollowing with the Simon Hope pro tool, and the turntable reveal.