Creative Bowerbird : Copper dipped pottery

Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Copper dipped pottery

I recently bought some pretty ordinary looking 80s pottery pieces, I loved the shapes but they were oh so ugly!! Pottery was very popular in the 70s and 80s so it is available in abundance at op shops today and can be really really cheap. I picked up these pieces for a few dollars each. The thing I love about pottery is that it is mostly handcrafted so you can find many interesting shapes and textures. On the other hand it can also be really drab....So. Much. Brown!

I masked the unglazed section of the small vase so the texture would come through the copper. The pieces were then sprayed white. If you are painting glazed pottery its a good idea to lightly sand first or use a priming product such as ESP to help the paint stick. I then painted the inside of the bowl pale aqua. I was a little heavy handed with the aqua and it ran down the insides slightly, luckily the end result looked more like glaze not spray paint so it was actually a successful mistake! The tall vase was given a very light spray of pale pink on the middle section followed by another very light spray of white to create a dipped ombre effect.

Painted ready for copper leaf

I LOVE copper at the moment, if you follow me on pinterest you will see my obsession! I love the rustic brushed copper effect you get from the leaf as opposed to copper paint.

I am going for an dipped copper look so I didn't have to be really precise when applying the leafing size (aka the glue for gilding). The size is tacky after about 30 minutes then you can start the gilding. Gilding is pretty easy, carefully layer the leaf on the tacky surface and gently smooth the leaf over the surface using a soft paint brush. Once dry remove the excess leaf with a soft brush. There are plenty of You Tube tutorials to check out.

Here are the results, I am so happy with the way they turned out!