Canes, finished pieces and low temp enamels

I'm putting here a few short notes - I'm waiting for the medical transportation company to pick me up for my appointment with the spine specialist so I will post something more elaborate later today. I just wanted to give you a few heads up where I am right now.

I only need to finish editing the tutorial on the pieces made with the Stroppel cane. The unfortunate events of yesterday with the delays uploading the tutorial on the cane itself made my work on that be delayed as well.

I got the cane caps from tinypandora (thank you, Elizabeth!) and she sent me a bracelet kit too (I love you, Teresa!). So depending how worn out I will be after the doctors visit (and if they give me any spine shots or not) I will be working on a translucent cane tutorial either this afternoon or you'll see it tomorrow. And next week I'll do a bracelet one too with the kit.

Finally all got finalized with the low temp enamel manufacturer. I do have to re-shoot a few things on the review and testing, and I will also take the opportunity that Ludmila Bakulina has posted a video on how to make enameled-metal-looking-like poppies, I will try and see if this enamel works on doing those, so you know if you want to make the poppies, where to get the enamel, here in the US. I hope to have that up Sunday.

So, teaser for the pendants made with Stroppel cane until the tutorial gets uploaded

Colors...

I am almost done with editing the tutorial  for today - well to be honest, I taped stuff for three tutorials at the same time - but I will have to leave the house soon for my weekly foray with my best friend. I will also stop at Hobby Lobby to get clay - it's the week with discounts on it, and with both me and my BFF having the 40% coupon, I intend to get a texture and a silk screen as well.

I am sorry I didn't do stuff earlier. For one, last evening I narcolepsied again. Woke up around midnight but I felt like a zombie, so I pretty much dozed on and off until close to 5 am.

Then I worked on the tutorials but also I have a few commissions to finish. One of them I am quite proud of. It was ordered by someone for a lady who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is starting chemo soon, and it's supposed to cover the port she has. The idea is that it's supposed to be something "empowering". So I thought of this. I usually don't use molds, but I had this mold of the Goddess Athena, so I thought, what better "empowerment" than the warrior goddess? Then I used the "extruder stripes" to make the necklace look like waves of power radiating from the central figure.

So first in line for uploading today is a short tutorial on making a pair of ear rings from the spiral jelly roll mokume gane. No, not the same cane, I actually made a new one with a blue/green color swatch, because the original one I have it earmarked for a tutorial for my Patreon patrons. Also, I wanted to deform the cane for the ear rings as I wanted them in a long triangle. I don't fully finish them because they need resined, and no UV resin. So it would have been hard to resin them up if they were already with the findings on.

But they came up pretty. I made a necklace to go with them too, used as filling some left-over veneer from that busted bangle I made when I made the brocade effect tutorial. I also wanted to show one of the combinations of colors I was talking about during the tutorial.

Should I make a "how to choose colors" tutorial? There have been a few comments about how to choose colors on several of my tutorials, so I wonder if I should make a tutorial about that?

"Jade" happiness necklace

It's in the final stage of baking. Should take about 20 minutes to completely finish taping then about 15 minutes to edit. Then I'll upload. I will try to keep this under 20 minutes so it won't take 8 hours to upload. Teaser soon.

I will upload the Navajo bracelet probably either tonight or tomorrow morning. I don't think I will have time tomorrow to make a tutorial as I have to go out and do stuff. So it's nice to have something already done, even if it's something that got delayed for so long. The irritating part is that me delaying the upload is just because of youtube's crappy upload speed.

Anyway. Today's tutorial is about a DIY faux jade on "silver" with the happiness Kanji. It does not involve any textures, just clay, the little "sausage" for baking long bails, acrylic paints, silver Inka Gold, some alcohol ink paints but those aren't really necessary, I used them because I only had two shades of green, fragments of them, that weren't really the best to make faux jade with.

So necessary:

- translucent clay
- silver or gold clay. I used silver because, well, I only have silver Inka Gold, and this thing looks better with a metallic wax than with an acrylic paint.
- some green clay of various shades
- optional green alcohol ink
- the "sausage" for baking long bails
- a big round cutter (the buggest in the set)
- a small square cutter (the smallest in the set)
- a thin pointy thing to make straight-line indentations
- leather cord or string, some silvery beads and a silverish toggle clasp

It's almost done. I'm waiting for the glaze to dry up so I can finish putting it together.

Teaser:

I know. I'm not happy about the "jade" too much either. Oh well. I really need to come up with my own thing on this one, I just followed someone else's. You know the saying "there's no better job than the one you do yourself"

Update 5:15-ish

Well it's still uploading. 2 hours left. Sayz the Power that Be aka Youtube.

In other breaking and wonderful news, my Michaels package finally arrived. If I weren't in the process of  making two cuff bracelets with the "copper heat patina" thing, I'd be all over the extruder and making "Lalique" bwahaha. I should finish the cuffs tonight. Tomorrow will be the Navajo bracelet time - in the morning - until how long it takes to upload. I got stuff planned (theoretically) til 2 or 3 pm. Then it depends how tired i am in the afternoon, I'll be playing with the new stuff. Or not. I got the bake and blend too, so it will be time to make some textures and stamps.

Talking of which, I already talked to some friends in Europe. Next week I got to work on some good quality vector art to see if they can find someone to make texture sheets for me. I am honestly quite unhappy with most of the texture sheets on the market here. It's pretty much like "oh we know we suck at design, but we'll still sell you this crap we made, and we know you'll buy it because 1. Our name is X (big font X) and you'd buy any shit we make and 2. There's nothing else for you to buy out there, and even if there is, they don't have the advertising power we do - or the knowledge to make themselves known well enough".

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

In the mean time we wait for Youtube. To, Upload.

And here's Conor laying around all over the house trying to entice me with his fluffeh belleh. He got me a couple of times, I had to stop and pet that fluffeh belleh.

8:30 pm update

Wow. Here's a new one. It's  uploaded, but now PROCESSING takes hours. It never took more than a few minutes before. it's 69% processed 1 hour 50 minutes remaining. Say wha...?

Ok, checked again. 27% processesd 3 minutes remaining Youtube, go home. You're drunk.

Finally

The cane for the Central American native inspired necklace

I researched quite a bit for the design of this cane. I chose the triangles arranged to formed lozenges because they are a repetitive motif in many cultures, and as symbol it usually represents fertility - not only as babies and breeding, but also as general fertility in life, a kind of "may all be bountiful to you".  The symbolism is very simple - and some might find it crude. The triangle with the point down is the female, the triangle with the point up is the male. It's essentially based on ... the shape of the public hair that is different for human males and females. When they come together in a lozenge.. you get the picture. So, yeah, it's been around since the dawn of the human species, and is one of the most generally spread world-wide, it can be found in all ancient cultures, from Australia to Siberia, to Africa and to South America, beyond and in-between.

Now, the colors.

If you want to go for more a more contemporary look, you can choose brighter colors (also specific to modern Mexico). But if you want to go with the traditional, ancient native color palette, you must choose colors that are a subdued. 'earthy" primary: cinnamon red instead or red, stoneware blue instead of blue, sage green and forest green instead of regular bright green, pale yellow instead of bright yellow. And the rule is, you MAY use a brighter blue or green but NEVER together. If  you have together green and blue they both must be subdued and earthy. Otherwise you can use a turquoise blue, but then don't add green.

examples (one brighter one not so bright)

As what you can find on the market, I'd recommend the Souffle. It has beautiful earthy colors that don't really need mixing. In fact, I am using the Canary yellow in the tutorial.

If you don't have Souffle and don't feel like going to buy some and just want to use what you have, you'd get the colors as follow - a little approximate as the colors are a little different on different brands. I am talking here of primary colors for the mix - count as "part" any unit of measure; you can get a sheet on the thickest setting then use the same cutter to cut the "parts" out of the sheets:

- subdued yellow - 3 parts white 2 parts yellow
- earthy red - 2 parts red 3 parts yellow 1 part brown (or 1/2 black)
- stoneware blue (or thereabouts) - 3 parts white 1 part blue 1/2 part black.
- sage green - 2 parts white 1 part yellow 1 part green 1/2 part black
- forest green - 3 parts green, 1 part white or yellow, 1/2 to 1 part black

Careful with each color - in different brands the pigments are stronger. So whatever is not white, yellow or green, first add half of what I recommend, look at the result, then if it needs more, go for it.

The cane is huge. I tried making it smaller but I'm losing detail. This way, it's a pain to reduce  but it keeps all the design. Careful with the center, it will have the tendency to move slower, like any other big/thick cane. Also try to get all your colors at about the same amount of conditioning otherwise some might "pull" more than others.

Reducing:

ALWAYS start with just pressing. Give one firm press, with an even pressure (you can use an acrylic stamp block if you're comfortable with that better than your hand), just one press, roll once for the next side, one press, roll. Of course, only press on the wrapped in black side. You will be amazed how fast it reduces, within 5 minutes you will have it at about 1". From there it's easy. Start using your roller. But be patient, one roll, turn, one roll, turn, every 8 rolls turn it around - most people have an uneven rolling and if you don't turn it one end will be thinner than the other. It takes about 15-20 minutes to reduce it to about 1/2" side. Just don't get greedy and in a hurry and don't do more than one at a time.

Here's the diagram.

The tutorial should be up at around 7:15 pm CDT - it's 5:40 pm CDT right now and youtube says one hour and 35 minutes remaining. I'll update this with the link when it's up.
P.S. I'm utterly confused. The uploading computer says "29% uploaded, about 1 hour 10 minutes remaining". The laptop says "20% uploaded, about 2 hours 55 minutes remaining". WTF Youtube?!?

The cane is from this necklace. The tutorial is the first one I ever uploaded.

 

The tutorial is up 

 

High risk

The Norman Weather Service has upgraded the severe weather risk area to "high". That's the highest. There is a severe tornado outbreak predicted for today. As much as it is true that my side of town is still in the "slight", that doesn't mean it can't get hit. Weather is unpredictable and mother nature doesn't really care about lines people draw on a map.

This being said, I might be updating a lot. I tend to be hyper when I'm worried.

Back to polymer claying.

I found a way to do the home-made alcohol inks. FINALLY. That's one of my pet peeves, that with my income I can't afford so many of the goodies out t here that would allow me to make prettier jewelry. Oh well. With careful budgeting I'll get there. One day.

And as I don't think I'll ever make a tutorial video about it - i t would be too risky with my hands medical issues, I'd probably topple stuff left and right and can't do that in the office room, I did the inks in the kitchen and there's no way to rig the camera there anymore - I'll just tell you.

Get a few smallish jars or if you're sure that you won't bump and topple, even plastic one-ise cups. Alcohol (the higher grade the better). Those fine tip applicator henna bottles work the best for storing (I just had a whole bunch in the house as I do henna tattooing from time to time). And.....  *suspense building*..... permanent markers. Well. Should have thought of this earlier, the permanent markers DO give that strong odor of alcohol when used, right? So, wearing gloves (a must, otherwise you'll stain your skin something fierce), break the markers open, remove and unfold the felt-y thing inside, and let it soak for 5-6 hours in alcohol. And voila! you got your alcohol ink. You can get the markers at the dollar store for quite cheap. I had around the house a few sets of many many colors so I am still in the process of making many, many colors of ink. Why did I have so many? No idea. I don't remember buying them - I don't do marker art and drawing - so probably someone got it for me.

As I can't get any stuff until the first of the month, and for the faux Tiffany I need either more liquid polymer clay or an embossing ink pen, I was thinking to do a tutorial today on canes for Coleus leaves. Even if you don't know what Coleus is, you've seen it for sure. It's an annual decorative plant, with the leaves prettier than most flowers. There are many kinds, each of them with a different design on the leaves.  Here's a few:

Yes, there is a way to replicate those beautiful patterns. And there are dozens and dozens of them. Even without using it as a leaf, you can still use it for a pendant or beads.

So yes I will get on that today.

Will update later

Update 2:55 pm.

Storms have started to fire up in the southwest of the state and are already becoming tornadic. Uhhh

I finished the coleus tutorial, it's uploading. 2+hours for about 16 minutes of video. Seriously, youtube?

Result

Trying to find my syringe needles. I saw something really cool involving alcohol inks and I want to try it but I need a very controlled and tiny dripping. It's a huge difference working with an A4 sized yupo paper and working with a 1square inch of surface.

Yes I have syringe needles. You can find them at feed stores, the kind that have stuff for cattle. Syringes too. That's what I always used when rescuing kittens. The syringes, without needles, doh.

Update 5:50

Yes the tutorial got uploaded but I didn't have the time to update this as a first wave of severe storms passed overhead. Just a slight stuff for what has been around the state today - got some quarter size hail and lots of wind and rain. My poor shorthair cat is terrified of storms. He starts yowling loudly and if I don't go pick him up and cuddle him he gets in a kind of shock state and pees himself while screaming in terror. Well he might still pee himself if I don't get to him in time.

Yes. Not much polymer claying today, besides the cane. Sorry, bad weather.

Anyway, here's the tutorial

Sunny with dragonflies

Gods above and on Earth I'm tired.

I woke up a little after 2 am. Storms moving through. Very noisily. At least on my side of town there was no wind damage. Well, at my house. I didn't get out of the house today so I don't know about others, but the West and North sides of OKC had wind damage.

So I told myself "I'll take naps during the day". Well, I will. So there.

Until then though, I finished the "make a dragonfly necklace out of your scrap clay" tutorial. It's uploading now. But it's 42 minutes long. So... 4 hours, maybe?

Anyway. It looks good. I'll take a nap and then I'll work on the other one I have in mind. I intended to go get something but I decided it can wait. Until the week-end.

This is how the necklace came out:

Edit 12:15 pm

Youtube is sneaky. Now it doesn't say anymore how much time remaining for your video to upload. It only says the %. Because of course you might forget that you started the upload an hour ago and it's only gone to 20%. "Four hours? Us? Naaaaa! Here, look at this %! See how good we're doing?"

Edit 7 pm. It's finally up. I realized I did a little mess up and the eye cane section was repeating, I fixed it but it takes a while for youtube to process that (in case you were wondering)

Anyway, here it is

Edit 4:45 pm. It started showing time remaining. 2 more hours. I think I really need to divide any videos into 10-15 minutes at the most and just upload "part 1" "part 2" etc. This is ridiculous. Again it's youtube not me. It does seem to go faster at night, but I'm sorry, I am not going to leave the Starship trooper on for the night. Not so much about power consumption but about noisiness.

Now I feel like

Again, stormy with a chance of polymer claying - a big rant and ideas

Oklahoma. We're supposed to have a wave of severe weather starting this afternoon til Friday, with a short break part of the day on Wednesday.

All my scars started screaming last evening, so of course I didn't sleep too good. Woke up the first time close to 2 am. Moved to the living room, turned on the youtube on reality tv courts and managed to sleep til a little after 4 am. Yes, for some reason, white noise that comprises either Judge Judy or Judge Milian help me sleep better than "binaural music for relaxation and sleep" lol. Oh no, don't think that I consider them boring, in fact, I love both of them to pieces. When it comes to Judge Judy, she is my ideal figure of a mother. And did you ever notice how much her and Sophia's character in the Golden Girls are alike? As for judge Milian I love her to pieces. No, no girl crush, I'm 1000% hetero lol. I just like her a lot, she has a great heart but

Wait this is a blog about polymer clay. Why am I rambling about TV shows? Haha

So after straightening the house a little I am planning on making a tutorial about faux Tiffany stained glass effect. I searched and searched and couldn't find anywhere a tutorial with the technique I personally use, so hey! I might call it Kalyana technique eh? My name (well my brand name) will be famous for eternity! "Day's technique" wouldn't sound as awesome as "the Kalyana technique". Oh yes. Sounds impressive and mysterious.

Anyway. I'll update this as the day goes by, as usual. I know, blogs shouldn't be done like this. Who cares. This is my blog and I write what I want and when I want it.

Oh yes, the rant. So a couple of weeks ago I purchased some stuff on Ebay. Among which were some texture sheets from China. They started coming in the mail, various vendors, not just one source. And one of them really pissed me off, to the point that I left a scathing feedback review.

See this (click on the link, it's ebay)? Does it say "silicone"? Does it say "baking"? Yes? You see it?

Texture sheets

well, it's darn plastic. Has nothing to do with silicone or with baking. It melts. It doesn't bend.

Don't get me wrong, the texture is still ok, does leave the imprint I wanted it to - the bubbles one actually adds a lot of texture to mokume gane. But I hate it when vendors misrepresent their merchandise.

Also, as idea. Next time when you go treasure hunting at a second hand store, look in the kid's toys area. Some of the play-doh kits have really need cutters and stamps and molds. Actually some of them are even worth to buy new. You get many awesome shapes of pendants  for the price that it would cost you to buy a single one from a polymer clay supplies store.

Talking of which. I hate that there is no more Michaels in my neighborhood. There's only Hobby Lobby and I absolutely loathe their overpricing. I was looking, those 5 piece kits of silicone-tipped sculpting tools? You can get them usually under $5.50 on ebay, amazon, etc. They're close to $12.00 at Hobby Lobby! Then, cutter sets - same exact shape, same exact dimension, same exact number of cutters, in the cake decorating area (fondant) it's $2.99 or $3.99, in the polymer clay area it's $7.99. Yes, the package is different but it's the exact same thing!!!

Anyway. Talk to  you guys later.

11:50 edit

Look at this

Dude. We should get a swap going.

Edit 3:50. Watching the storms starting to fire up in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles. The nasty kind of storms. The ones that hate each other and are each by its own. Seriously, from the so many CEUs (I completely forgot how many) I got in classes and working in State Emergency Management one thing I learned early on: line of storms is less dangerous than isolated strong storms. That's not to say that lines of storms - yanno, like the ones that stretch from Arizona/SW Texas all the way to Delaware in a diagonal - don't produce tornadoes. Yes, they do, but if it's a line of storms the chances of those tornadoes to be F5 are very low. F4, maybe, with a capital M. F0-F1-F2-F3. Not that those don't cause damage, but they don't kill as many people and don't do so much destruction. But the big, isolated storms that move kind of together but not really - like a group of crochety old ladies at church, they kind of want the pastor to see they're good people and care about the others but at the same time they can't stand each other. THOSE are the kind that can produce something like the 2013 El Reno tornado, the widest in recorded history, 2.5 miles diameter at the base of the funnel. Or the infamous Moore 2009 and Moore 2013, both suspected of almost passing the F5 level, that killed so many people.

Bah. Anyway. I keep experimenting for the faux Tiffany tutorial. It's possible that I might have to do it later. I'm almost completely out of liquid Sculpey and the glaze dries out before I can finish the ouline to sprinkle it with the embossing powder. Plus, I can't do such pretty lines with the paintbrush as I can with my henna tippity-tip squeeze bottle. Yea, that's the one that rocks.

See? Not that awesome, The one with the glittery embossing powder at the left (which is the finest one) looks a little better, but the lines are still too thick. That's because I had to keep going back over with the glaze because it kept drying before I could apply the powder. Looks like a child's drawing. Yes, yes, I know, Tiffany lamps aren't exactly the sharpest lines in the drawer but still this looks like a second grader drew them.

cya in a while, clay-o-file

Redone a tutorial

I went ahead and re-did the Bargello tutorial. I got many messages and emails from people asking me if I could make the video better.

Well, I can't. Everything kind of went wrong that day. I first chose the wrong setting in the recording, as in wrong type of file. File that my video editor couldn't handle. So I had to "translate" it. Some quality got lost. Then I didn't realize that youtube likes certain types of files better than others, and the type of file I saved the video in, Youtube has the habit of making "choppy". Even if the video before uploading looked fine - and even if I download it again from youtube it looks fine - you need to watch it in super-HD for the least choppiness.

So I decided to make a new one, now that I know what to use.
Also, I'm still looking for a used computer desk to make it "tutorial space", that would allow me to actually edit my videos sitting down instead of standing up - as now I'm using my existing computer desk for tutorial working space. And working space in general.

I am uploading a little video as I'm typing this, and as soon as it uploads I'll add it to the end of this post.  Just about the finds I had in stores lately. Shows that one doesn't have to spend hundreds on texture sheets and stamps and stencils, and serendipity might make you find something that can be used as a stencil when you went in the store to get olive oil.

European suppliers

I do quite often purchase things from Europe. And most of the time it may take just a day or two more for them to get here compared to purchasing US only. Yes, the shipping is a tad more - but not by much, and even so the prices are still lower than the US prices.

One of the stores I've discovered is in the Czech Republic. So many things I want to buy from that store that - can I win the lottery please? Look at all this stuff. Keep in mind that 100 CZK (Czech crowns) is just a tad over $4 (today it's $4.13 to be exact). No wonder European artists create so much more than us in the US of A or even Canada.

Nemravka store

Sunny with a chance of polymer claying

Just kidding. Well not kidding actually, stating facts.

I usually - and when I say usually it means that unless we have tornadic storms, subfreezing temperatures or horribly sick days, it happens - me and my best friend have to quench our "fix". That is treasure hunting at Goodwill (and sometimes other second hand stores or flea markets).

Sometimes we do it on Saturday, sometimes on Sunday. This week-end today is the day.

I'll stop by Hobby Lobby to get my black thick jump rings and some more polymer clay. I think I might try a faux turquoise tutorial, even if there are so many out there. One more doesn't hurt now does it.

I was also looking at the Tuareg tribal jewelry. "Tuareg". the word in itself raises in my mind fantasy lands with lots of  mysteries. That is because I was in my early teens when I read "Atlantida" by Pierre Benoit. If you didn't read it, go look for it. It's worth it.

Anyway, I started being fascinated by their jewelry. I might make some pieces inspired by it. I need to look more into their symbolistic.

So, talk to you tomorrow. Until then, here's my new tutorial.

First tutorial

I'm late again. So yes, yesterday I spent all day long making tutorial videos.

First setback - I couldn't find an LED desk lamp. I used to have one, and threw it away like an idiot. Now you can't find them anymore - they used to be around $10. The cheapest you can find now are $20. Also, swivel adjustable arm lamps are now over $35 - and those are the regular lightbulb ones.

The nice LED ones are over $80. So I will have to come up with some kind of rigging for that.

Second setback - well not really a setback, as I managed to do a temporary thing - was with rigging the camera so it would show just my hands and work space close up. Well, did that.

Then after I taped the first clip, when trying to tape the next one, had the nasty surprise to find out that the "free" video capture software I had downloaded was not free, was free for only an hour. So I had to look for and install another one. Couldn't use the built-in camera capture of Windows 8 due to poor frame rate.

Installed the second software and only after I had taped everything, when I started editing, I realized I had chosen a wrong type of file that doesn't work in Movie Maker. So I had to "translate" everything in AVI and of course some quality got lost in translation.

Well I did finish everything though. Not the quality I wanted, but it will work for starters. It's uploading on youtube as I'm typing this. 11% done. So probably it will take another couple hours to finish as the final video came up about 47 minutes long. I need to just stop talking and caption everything, so the videos are shorter and will take less time to process and upload.
So here we go

In the meantime, meet my fuzzy cat Conor. I had to make him part of my tutorials. You'll see him in the end of the video. Yes, he does sit like that. He also loves to have his belly rubbed. I mean, really loves it, not like other cats who just entice you so they can grab and scratch and bite you.

Weather and polymer clay

Artists who have worked a while with polymer clay know how much the weather can interfere with your work.

Too hot? Soft, stretchy clay. Too cold? You have to work a lot to condition it. And the worst is when it's too humid.

Yesterday was a stormy day. Well, it's Oklahoma and it's the end of April. Nothing unusual here.

I decided to set my "mosaic" flowers in bib necklace type settings that would be reminiscing a little the old Byzantine jewelry.

I had to take several breaks while I was working during which I had put the polymer clay in the freezer between paper towels. Hot humid weather.  Well mostly humid, didn't really need to turn on the A/C - I'm quite comfortable at 76F, thank you. The clay isn't.

Anyway, I decided to make one in ancient bronze look and the other one in a more copperish look.

They're at this stage - the ancient bronze one already got a brushing of mica powder, the other one is lagging behind a little.

What I wanted to do is to give you a tip - it doesn't show much in the photos at this stage, but when the pieces will be finished it will show properly.

Most people when they try to imitate metal, they will use that respective shade of polymer clay, then enhance it with mica powder then use some acrylic paint for patina

.

There's a way to make things look with a patina from the start.

If you take an old piece of jewelry (or any other metal work for that matter) and you look, there's a specific shade of patina depending on the metal. Right? That is why we use a green-ish paint for copper, black for silver, etc.

Well, try to do that to start with.

I normally mix different colors of the polymer clay to get the color of the patina directly. For example, try mixing the Premo peacock blue with gold and a smidgeon of bronze. You will get pretty much the color copper gets when it's oxidized. I used to mix silver and black until Premo came up with the metallic granite. It's perfect for silver pieces. For bronze, mix bronze and gold with a smidgeon of black. Then you won't have to work so much on applying a patina on stuff - the mica powder slightly brushed on will make the metal pop up and you won't have to worry about the aged look - it's already there!