Why I love my blowtorch

Can you make jewelry without a blowtorch? Of course. But it isn't as awesome. Most of the jewelry I make is copper. I don't make copper jewelry just because I love copper (I do), but also because I'm too poor to buy sterling silver materials. However, silver jewelry is next on my list now that I'm feeling more and more like a master of my craft. There's definitely less at stake if you screw up with copper, as it's a relatively inexpensive metal. As a lover of all things old-looking, I've experimented with different ways to age the copper I use. One method I use often is liver of sulfur, which can be diluted to blacken copper, silver and other metals. Example:

The downside to liver of sulfur is that it smells like, well, sulfur, and it turns your fingers black and, for some reason, my cat always tries to drink the water I use to dilute it. Don't ask me why. It's pretty disgusting. My method of choice is what is called "flame painting." Flame painting is done by applying heat (I use a blowtorch) to copper in order to build layers of oxidation, which bring out different colors in the metal. The ultimate effect is something similar to a pool of gasoline... an amoebic rainbow. It requires some skill to achieve the colors you want. Some artists paint large copper vases or sculptures with designs, but this requires a lot of practice to predict the outcome. As you will find if you do it, it's not to easy to know what the copper will look like once heat is applied. It can depend on a lot of things, including environmental changes day to day that effect the oxidation, the temperature of your heat source, the thickness of the metal itself. In the case of jewelry, the small wires used heat much faster and will usually turn blueish before the thicker pieces of copper change at all. With jewelry, I usually just sort of let fate decide what the outcome will be.

The picture quality isn't so great, but two butterflies on this necklace have blueish purpleish swirls while one butterfly is much lighter. The other is barely changed. I applied different levels of heat to each butterfly to make them unique.

Another thing I like about the flame painting is that it really works well when you have colored glass beads or stones with subtle coloring. The colors in the copper compliment them much better than merely blackening the metal would. Again, bad quality on the picture, but the colors in these earrings look really beautiful with the sparkly b

lue and champagne colored Chinese glass beads.

I found that the closer I put the torch's spout to the metal, the deeper the color. When I applied the heat more slowly, using the tip of the flame, the color was much lighter and more subtle. I achieved a much brighter (and more unexpected) effect with these earrings.

If you flame copper, it's important to protect the metal with a lacquer or oil-based polyurethane to stop further oxidation from the environment. If you don't do this, eventually the colors will fade. Every copper artist has their own favorite brand. There are plenty of products made specifically for preserving copper, but they tend to be expensive. A lot of artists seem to have luck with furniture lacquers and cheaper products that can be bought at any hardware store.

Flame painting is something I highly recommend to anyone interested in making metal jewelry. Copper is a great material for beginner metalsmiths to work with. Don't be intimidated by the blowtorch. I use mine indoors, in the room next to my livingroom that I have set up as a studio. Here's what my wreck of a work bench looks like:

As you can see, you don't need much space to use a blowtorch if you are careful. Basically you need a pedestal of some sort and something to put over it, like a piece of mesh, aluminum, etcetera. I made mine out of crap I found at Goodwill.. I think the bottom is part of a candle holder and the top is some sort of kitchen grating. Nothing fancy is required to make awesome flame painted copper jewelry! (Of course, you do have to make the jewelry first, but I'll address that in another post.)