Color Patinas For bronze

The intense colors of spring have inspired a new range of hot patinas that can be custom ordered for select insects pulls.

Dragonfly

The blue dasher is part the dragonfly family which is one of the largest insect groups in the world. Dragonflies are part of the skimmer family a name that aptly describes how they hover over water when mating and laying their eggs.

The red veined darter inspired our first dragonfly cabinet pull and the original carving and first castings were made in 1995. The first pieces in the cabinet pull collection were designed for our Ascot and Aspen limited edition furniture designs.

Common Blue Butterfly

Is a small butterfly most seen in the U.K and Ireland where it favors cool grassy meadows and woodlands.

Green long winged butterfly

The striking green- black markings of this long-winged butterfly were the basis for a new custom hot patina shown here. Butterflies and moths often display a distinctive array of colored patterns, and their geometry and repetition inspired our first butterfly pull which we used as cabinet door pulls on our Seicho style buffet.

Yellow Black bumble bee

Sadly, this bee, like many other insects is in decline through loss of habitat, pesticides, and inbreeding.

Hot patinas reason for minimum order

Creating a hot patina requires dexterity, a blow torch and keen concentration. The surface of the bronze needs to be finely sand blasted so that the surface has a slightly pitted texture. The pitted texture prevents the patina from sloughing off which is what would happen on a highly polished surface. Once sand blasted, the piece is firmly held with pliers and heated with a blow torch. Once hot the colored dye oxide is applied with a fine brush. During this process the piece must be repeatedly torched to maintain the temperature. The heat acts to open the surface pores of the metal thereby allowing the oxide to penetrate. The temperature is critical as too much heat will cause the oxide to crystallize and burn. The preparation of the piece and of the work area and tools are all time consuming and for this reason we require a minimum of 3 pieces for each order.

Happy New Year

We spent the days leading to 2024 in the quiet beauty of Paso Robles with a wonderful book by Virginia Atchley that documents the wonders of miniature Japanese art. Inspired by both we will this year be exploring how to create intricate details in sculpture using a variety of metals and possibly other mediums. Stay posted.

Creative solutions for a narrow door stile

Whether an interior door or cabinet door, a narrow door stile can be a challenge. Creative positioning of a door pull can be a solution if you plan ahead. You will need to consider all the dimensions of your pull and not merely compare the width of a pull with the available width of  your door stile. The width, depth and height of many pulls differs throughout  a piece and this is especially so where the piece is not a symmetrical or a standard geometric shape.

The Hedgerow heroic trees are good examples of the variations within a piece.

Using Directional Pieces

The Hedgerow trees are a pair and the sway of the trunk is how we chose to designate one left and one right. Nature makes no such distinction which explains why these bronze trees can work pointing left or right as the restraints of the door stile dictate. The design and mounting spots  also allows the tree to be positioned a few degrees  off perpendicular which is helpful when positioning on a narrow stile.

The mock-up below shows a door with a 5” stile so by flipping the direction of the tree the sway of the trunks prevents knuckle collision. As the pull projects out by 1 1/2” it has ample clearance from the face of the door panel for a comfortable grip.

 Re-configuring the pull

Many of our pulls and handles are made in parts which are welded together. All of our dog door knobs are made with the head cast separately to the escutcheon or pull. For a narrow door stile, we recently re-configured the location of the head so that the pull could be positioned horizontally. In the mock-up below the door stile is a narrow 3” but the door rail at  41/2” allowed the dog head to be positioned upright.

Left: reconfigured dog head location Right: playful use of the standard dog head location

With a 3 1/4” distance between ears some planning ahead is needed for a narrow door stile

Patinas For Hardware and Sculpture

In previous pieces we have covered  our standard light and dark antique patinas. For custom orders we also offer a hot patina, which is applied to pre-heated bronze. We limit these finishes to just a  few pieces, that include the  small butterfly pull, which can be special ordered in amber- yellow; the frog knob, which can be ordered in a blue green, and the lizard lever or knob which we can patina pea green.

Sandblasted brushed - patina ready Cold antique bronze patina Pea-green hot patina

With our new bronze sculptures, we are developing patinas made with ferric nitrate as well as liver- of sulphur. Ferric Nitrate is a chemical compound of iron powder, nitric acid and it produces a  rust red patina. Liver-of-sulphur  is a chemical compound of powdered sulphur, sodium, and water. They are applied to the sculpture with a spray bottle or brush and the sculpture is preheated to a temperature of approximately 100°to 200°depending on the chemical and dilution. As the sculpture is hot, the wet patina attaches to the surface and the moisture evaporates quickly leaving behind a layer of color.

The colors these patinas produce on bronze can vary from gold to brown to red to dark red to black, depending on how hot the piece is, and how many coats are applied. The chemicals below can be mixed and diluted to produce a wide range of hues. They can also be applied over each other provided the previous patina has sufficiently dried. By layering the patinas and by using brushes and different spraying methods it is possible to develop deep mottled colors and effects. It has taken a lot of practice and years of trial and error to create the look we are seeking for each sculpture.

1. Scotch bright surface 2. Sulphur dioxide spray mist onto surface 3. Diluted bismuth white splatter spot spray

4. Ferric nitrate fine spray cover surface fine coating. 5. When dry wax

Words of caution to anyone thinking of learning how to patina bronze, exercise caution and a generous helping of common sense. The patinas we use are applied in a very well ventilated area and masks and gloves and protective aprons are a must. We also exercise considerable caution when heating up bronze as temperatures above 100° can burn exposed skin.

Liver of sulfur – yellow brown to black tones

Ferric nitrate – red tones

Ferric chloride – darker red tones 

Bismuth nitrate and titanium dioxide – white

Cupric chloride  – pea green or apple green

Cupric nitrate – blue green

A very good site for reading more about patinas and for practical advise on formulas can be found at David B. Bowman an artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

When developing our line of Dog Knobs, one of the breeds we chose was the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, although not the most popular of breeds, we had one lovely example named Iris who we dearly loved. Iris has since past and now we have another Staffy called Jackson who is a very young, very strong and a very vocal young male. When we were contemplating a second Pit Bull, we spent time meeting rescue dogs to see if Iris would share her home with one and Jackson was her choice. Had we not spent the time checking both dogs for compatibility we may well have repeated a mistake made years before when we foolishly asked our resident Vizsla to share her home with a second Vizsla. While that particular canine bond was always a sensitive one, Jackson and iris got on fabulously and indeed Iris’s longevity and mental acuity we ascribe to Jackson’s puppy playfulness.

While Iris’s markings and ears  were very different to multi-colored perky eared Jackson, they both share the same head shape and extremely powerful jaw with soft and gentle muzzle and disposition.

 We understand that every dog owner loves their particular companion’s characteristics so for those of you with poodles, boxers, French bull dogs Golden retrievers, Labradors or German Shepherds, rest assured we have leash hooks and door knockers available for these breeds.

Animal Knobs - Bees, Lizard and Dragon Designs

All are part of the Netsuke Collection, named for the contained round shapes of its members that are similar  to their namesake used in clothing as fasteners.

Bee

The shape of the bumble bee is inherently round but in our artistic representation these attributes have been exaggerated for a more whimsical appearance. That said, we share with many a deep respect for this prodigious insect who is central to the pollination of plants and whose honey I enjoy on a daily basis.

Back in March 2019 we observed a swarm of bees that landed and rested in our Brazilian Pepper Tree along their way to create a new nest for their Queen bee.

 Recently we added another smaller bee to our collection of  flying insect cabinet knobs and again have rounded the contours of this piece to create an easy and pleasing to grasp cabinet pull. In an earlier post you can follow the development of this piece from initial sketch to fully fledged casting.

Lizard

The Anole lizard was the specific lizard that we modeled our door knob on. We chose this species as it has beautiful green tones that we could simulate by carefully applying a … patina to the lizards body and tinny toes.  The lizard as with all our Netsuke door knob sets can be mixed with different animals on either side of the door. Many of our door knobs can be used creatively by mixing different styles in one door set. To see how designer Hilary Zeiss playfully mixed 2 different animals please visit our blog posted on June 4th, 2021.

Dragon

The dragon is the most recent addition to this collection and is my personal favorite.

Happy Labor Day

While we humans may get a break from work those in the larger animal kingdom will still be buzzing and digging as they toil to create  honey and dung balls!

Our new sculptures include a dung beetle and Martin is currently creating an artistic portrayal of dung  beetle ball which will be the latest addition to his bug themed sculpture  series.

Our bees are still thriving in bronze and those who follow this blog know that we have recently added a bee cabinet knob to our flying creature collection of cabinet pulls.

Our fascination with bees was piqued by a book we are reading “An Immense World” by Ed Yong in which he devotes a chapter to the electrical world we live in. The planet’s daily thunderstorms are prolific running into the thousands and they create a massive electric circuit where the earth is a negative  and the air a positive charge. Bees buzz in this electric field passing by flowers who because they contain water are rendered negative or grounded. As bees fly through the air, they assume the positive charge of the air around them and when they land on a flower to suck nectar the negative pollen is attracted to the bees negative force and literally rises up towards the bee. For those able to remember their early science classes, this electric attraction is similar to what we observed as children when a magnet was used to pick-up iron filings.

Returning to the theme of this blog, labor day is not a holiday celebrated by bees or dung beetles both of which will be working overtime during this 3-day holiday.

Beetles in the fictional world of Martin Pierce

A lesser-known area of Martin Pierce’s work is the fictional world occupied by insect and humanoid bronze creatures. To better show these sculptures we are adding new pages to our site and will be creating a new collection page and eventually a payment portal.

Since childhood Martin has been  fascinated by  insects and birds and not just by their obvious beauty but by their ingenuity and dexterity. Wasps, butterflies, moths, and swallows are represented in our company’s door hardware and cabinet hardware collections. However, the scale of  door hardware as well as the functional limitations relegate these forms to incidental turn pieces, thumb latches or cabinet pieces. 

As Martin’s art work is not subject to the same restraints he is using this new freedom to re-imagine both the scale of humans to insects as well as their functional and social relationships.

In December 2021 Martin sourced a deceased aqua blue horned rhinoceros dung beetle from a New Mexico  entomologist. Known affectionately to friends  as Phanaeus Pilatei this particular insect is beautifully colored and powerfully built. The powerful front plate and horn is used as a soil digger that is as proportionately powerful as a bob-cat shovel or bulldozer blade.  Alas, the beauty and mechanical dexterity of Phanaeus is rarely appreciated due to his diminutive size. In Martin’s sculptures and paintings he hopes to shine a light on these undervalued scarabs by portraying then as larger than life and by developing a story that he hopes will be captivating.

True size of Dung beetle 3/4”L x 1/2”H New Model for Dung Sculpture 10”L x 6”H Other Beetle Sculptures

Dragon

The first dragons have emerged from the fiery pit of the foundry and have matured into full fledged beautiful door handles. We have enjoyed seeing these fiery monsters take shape and hope others will enjoy the whimsy of this new piece. A new dragon page has been added to our website and the new family member takes the center spot on our Netsuke page where you will find other animal knobs.

All of our work including our  fanciful pieces must also meet the functional demands of door hardware. To make the dragon casting into a functioning door handle it was fitted with a pre-machined  ferrule that was welded to the open end of the dragon. The inner section of our ferrule is machined to fit an 8mm square spindle. The spindle serves as a connecting rod and allows 2 knobs to be connected to make an interior door set.

The dragon rose will be used as a cylinder, turn piece or knob rose and the center area will be machined according to the size of the center hole needed.

The rose uses scaly dragon knuckles to create 4 decorative rows that meet in the center.

 For the dragon’s turn piece we looked to the Willow collection and found the bundle of Willow leaves to be a perfect match. We were considering a turn piece shaped as a hooked dragon toe but think this may be too kitsch of a statement.

Creating a simple bracket to secure a door lever

Now that Jackson, our latest Pitbull family member has turned one we realize that his name needs to be changed to Houdini! We had thought our front garden gate was a sturdy secure barrier that would keep us safe as it is fortified with a mortise lock made by Accurate, the industry leader in security locks. What we had not foreseen was that the gate could be opened from the inside by a cunning canine capable of standing on his hind legs while using his front paws to depress the gate lever.
If our dog training had been more successful and the commands of “come” and “stay” had worked then we might have been amused by his antics.
We installed Accurate’ s 9148 series mortise a well-designed mechanism that has an egress rocker that allows you to keep the gate unlocked, a useful function when your spouse is at home, and you want to pop out for a stroll. Faced with this unexpected problem our choice was to either replace the lever with a knob set and install a new mortise or find a way to outsmart Jackson. We chose the latter option as we enjoy our lizard entry set and so designed a simple restraining bracket for the inside lever that may help other homeowners facing the same problem.

Our simple restraining bracket works well for a mortise lock that is configured for an exterior thumb-latch and interior lever. The exterior thumb-latch when depressed retracts the latch that keeps the gate closed and when gripped allows you to pull the gate open without using the lever. The same bracket could be made to work on a simple passageway lever using a tubular latch but would only work if the spindle was split so that the exterior lever could retract the latch even when the interior lever is fixed in place by the bracket. The bracket works well for dogs as they lack a thumb to push the bracket down and thus cannot release the lever, but it would not work for dexterous children. The bracket can easily be made by hobbyists using half rod stock which is available at most hardware stores.

Simple bracket hobbyists can make using metal half rod to secure a door lever

While Jackson may be a challenging dog he is a classic Pitbull and his likeness is available as a door knob or pull or door knocker.

Dragon and Netsuke Door Knobs

Dragon and Netsuke Door Knobs

Dragons appear in fictional literature and are brilliantly described in the witty tale “Guards,Guards!” by Terry Pratchett. More recently they were portrayed as loyal protective demons in “Game of Thrones”. So, it will come as no surprise that we are adding a dragon door knob to our Netsuke collection.

Credit also needs to be given to Dr. Lisa Allen who ordered a Netsuke bumble bee and asked if we had plans for a dragon knob. We had not been planning an addition to the Netsuke collection so as an alternative, suggested Lisa order the lizard knob. If one looks at the portrayal of dragons in different times and cultures they range from serpentine winged creatures to horned scaly lizard-like creatures not unlike the Komodo “dragon” lizard found in Indonesia. Lisa was not to be persuaded by my lizard argument, so Martin turned to his sketch pad to wait for dragon inspiration.

Original Pattern Carved in High Density Foam - Finer Details then Carved into Applied Gesso

What follows is an account of how the dragon knob was designed, carved and by use of lost wax casting will soon take flight as a bronze door knob.

As the Dragon knob will become part of the Netsuke collection we used the compactness inherent in this collection as a focal point. This meant that the dragon had to fold in and around itself and cling tightly to the center of the knob to form an ergonomically pleasing shape that had few jagged protrusions. The tight compact and smooth design characterizes the bee, lizard, rabbit and frog knobs and is why the collection is named Netsuke after the early smooth animal toggles used as fasteners for garments and satchels in traditional Japanese clothing.

December 5th Men of the Desert Fund Raiser

If you are planning to visit Palm Springs and are looking for an interesting and fun event then look no further than the “Men of the Desert” (MOD) fashion show and luncheon a fund raising event held annually by the Animal Samaritans. Miriam Weigel, editor of the Pet Companion Magazine,  is helping to sponsor this event through her generous donation of our French Bulldog door knocker. Animal Samaritans is a non-profit group that has for more than 40 years been dedicated to finding ways of preventing pet euthanasia. The proceeds from this Sunday’s event will help further their work with the Adoption Alliance Rescue Program and their No kill Shelter.

 If you live in Coachella Valley then please do visit Animal Samaritans website which offers a clear and in-depth guide to their work and projects including the development of a 19,000 s.f. pet adoption and education building center in Thousand Palms. Ground breaking is planned for 2023 when the mid-century modern building will begin to take shape. As mentioned in an earlier post the mid-century modern style is one that has been embraced by desert residents for decades making this center a welcome addition to this rich architectural heritage. Animal Samaritans, as a non-profit, is committed to raising funds for what will be a home for 40 dogs and 40 cats as well as a learning center for nurturing skills in pet ownership, pet safety as well as teaching pet agility. To find out how to donate or find other ways of helping.

The French bulldog door knocker is one of 4 French bulldog functional door hardware pieces in a collection of 10 dog and 4 cat themed collections.

Palm Desert Loving All Animals Annual Event

We are pleased to share details of the annual  Spay-ghetti & No Balls event taking place this Saturday November 13th in Palm Desert and sponsored by Loving All Animals. The non-profit’s mission is to maximize the success of programs within the Coachella Valley dedicated to finding homes for homeless pets. Pet Companion Magazine have kindly donated one of our Siamese cat door coat hooks to the silent auction at this event. For more details about this event or for donations to this wonderful group please visit lovingallanimals.org or call 760-834-7000.

Brief Profile of the Siamese Cat:

The Siamese cat is thought to originate from Thailand formerly known as Siam*. The modern Siamese has, through selective breeding, become less rounded than it’s predecessor and is noted for it’s pointed large ears, long narrow neck and almost triangular shaped head with almond shaped eyes. The breed is short haired, and lacking an undercoat, its silky hair clings tightly to it’s body thereby accentuating it’s svelte musculature. The face has distinctive markings or points around the nose and eyes that develop as the kittens mature with colors ranging from grey to grey-brown to light grey and blue grey in tone.

The Siamese cat in our cat accessory collection is cast in silicon bronze, an alloy that is light brown in tone and which we accentuate with a dark brown patina to simulate the distinctive face point area. Siamese cats are by temperament social, playful and very vocal companions and they enjoy prominence amongst cat owners being one of the top 5 cats amongst US cat owners.

*Interesting information about this cat breed can be found at wikipedia

Cats, bats and frogs as enchanting familiars – Happy Halloween

While cats were often celebrated as symbols of good luck and were revered in Egyptian and Asian cultures, in Europe they took on a sinister role as the companions or familiars of witches who cast malevolent spells. It seems that this undeserved reputation took hold with the advent of the black plaque that devastated Europe in the 1600’s. This is rather ironic given that cats are superb predators of rats and indirectly of the fleas they carry making them extremely useful companions that are good for one’s health.
Witches suffered a similar plight and while the verb bewitched is synonymous with “enchanted” “charmed” “beguiled” it is also used to suggest evil powers and malevolent spells.

The negative image of witches spread to other creatures with which they were associated such as frogs and bats. Frogs and bats are both nocturnal and often live-in swamps, muddy ponds and caves, facts that helped advance their negative place in folklore.
Like many we like all these creatures and have portrayed them more favorably in our animal cabinet pulls and cat themed door knobs.
The 3 cats shown in our banner are Persian, Rag Doll and Common cat. Cast in solid bronze and patinaed and then sealed with an oil rubbed finish.

Our frog and bat cabinet pulls are made as left or right facing which allows for a more creative placement on cabinet doors that open to the left and right.

French bulldog gifts for owners

Why did we include the French Bulldog in our line of door dog knobs and door hardware? Well, the breed is definitely cute and its round head is perfect for use as a door knob but the reason is a more commercial one as the breed is the second most common breed for dog owners in the US and UK and hopefully will be one of our best-selling dog themed products.

French Bulldog Suitable for most Interior Doors

Thanks to Wikipedia I learned that the French bulldog was the result of English Lace workers from Nottingham who emigrated to Normandy France after their industry was decimated by the English industrial revolution of the 1800’s. These displaced migrants brought with them their English bulldogs and the ones they took tended to be smaller. It would appear that the local population were especially attracted to those dogs that had upward pointing ears and this characteristic was selectively bred into the breed that became the French bulldog.

French Bulldogs are often kept as companions, they rarely bark, and the breed is known for being both patient and affectionate and good at living with other dog breeds. As they are very people oriented, they tend to be easier to train than many breeds and clearly their size makes them ideal for smaller homes.

We began the French Bulldog design with a free-hand pencil drawing as Martin found it easier to plan the sculpted head with a drawing that focused on the creases and lines that are part of this breeds character. The drawing was then traced onto vellum and the side view was outlined on a 3” x 3” block of high-density foam. The sculpture took a few days to carve and on completion was sealed with grey primer. The subsequent 2- part mold was used to create the red wax replica shown here.

Sculpted French Bulldog Head used for the mold from which the red wax head was poured. A wax block was added to the chin and will become the gate through which the molten bronze will flow.

Inspiration for cabinet pulls from insects and animals

Browsing the Pinterest site I came across a word that I didn’t know the meaning of and this took me down the wonderland path to the origins and meaning of “memes” and how it differs but can be a source of inspiration. On that journey I found the term was coined by an evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins to describe a cultural element analogous to a biological gene. The word meme can mean any idea, fashion, picture, song, etc. that is propagated and communicated and in so doing takes on a life of it’s own. As it spreads people often will change it by putting on their own spin it. Think of the spins made on joke cartoon memes where in the telling of the joke a different animal or ethnic group is creatively substituted by another person to make a different audience laugh. Like biological genes the cultural meme will mutate as it spreads.

Hawk moth imitated in cabinet hardware - nature as inspiration

If memes are the social equivalent of biological genes where does nature as a source of inspiration fit in? Our finely detailed cabinet pulls with few exceptions have in some way been directly influenced by our appreciation of nature. Plants, animals, insects and other physical entities when taken collectively are how we define nature. In our new website’s cabinet hardware section we have grouped our pieces accordingly into natural categories:
Animals
Flying creatures
Plants
Flowers
Textures
Hedges

Nature imitated in bronze - dragonfly cabinet pull

If you look at the different categories the influence of nature as a source for these creative designs should be apparent. While customers like our work we can not describe the pieces or the pictures as memes as they appeal to a select small audience. Given that our work including our photographs are all copyrighted and original we also hope that it will not be propagated without our permission to do so.

Gifts for Dog Lovers - Door Knockers for Staffy Dog Owners

Our Dog Door Knobs have been on our web site for a couple of months now and include eight breeds of dog and 4 cat breeds. The dog collection is being expanded to include a Yorkshire Terrier and a Pug.

Our marketing is mainly by word of mouth through our blog as the collection develops with new pieces being added.We will also be sharing news on Jackson our new Staffy dog and companion to Iris, our current Staffy who has been featured many times on our blog.

We have announced our new collection through press releases and through Pet Companion Magazine which is well known locally in Southern California and neighboring states, and which is an excellent read in print at news-stands and on line at www.petcompanionmag.com.

We are very pleased that our dog themed accessories are receiving a good response from dog owners and orders are starting to arrive. Our first order for door knockers was surprisingly for six Staffordshire bull terriers. While we concur with the customer that the Staffy head is quite exceptional and warrants an order for six it did raise the question “who needs six door knockers?” We have concluded that the customer must have some very worthy friends and that the season for gifts is only 5 months away.

We took a few pictures of the patinaed door knockers, and the pack makes an interesting artistic statement.

Happy July 4th

We are celebrating the 4th with a long weekend and hope you are able to do the same. Ours will be spent comforting our older dog Iris, who like many dogs finds the noise of fireworks nerve racking. This year she is a little more fortunate as one of the advantages to her mature years is her diminished hearing and with a lot of ambient grey noise from electrical appliances we hope she will not hear the booms from city’s fireworks. For all the dog owners out there we wish you and your dogs a safe stress-free holiday.

To see other dog and cat themed door knobs visit our dog and cat pages.

Boxer dog door knobs

Having officially launched our new collection of dog themed door hardware we wanted to share some of the background behind each dog breed.

We have four boxer dogs in our neighborhood with wonderful names, 2 are named Tank and Pistol, they are difficult to tell apart which given they are brothers is not too surprising. The other 2 are rescue boxers named Doctor and Dolly. Dr is a white boxer named after the well- known British show “Dr. Who” the other is named Dolly and as you probably guessed is a nod to Dolly Parton. My neighbor is a long- term fan of boxers and all his dogs have come from Boxer Rescue Los Angeles, a non-profit rescue center funded solely by private donations with a fully staffed kennel facility in the San Fernando Valley.

The creative end result of our neighborhood boxers  is a boxer head door knob set. The door knob exists as a functioning passageway set or can be used as a fixed door knob. The boxer head is also available as a simple door pull, or coat hook or as front door knocker. So far we have 8 breeds of dog but have 2 more on the design board which we hope to add by the end of this year or early part of next year.

All of the dog door knobs are made with the same eye for detail as our other lines of door hardware and made the same way using the lost wax method to create intricately detailed castings.

Different Door Knobs - One Door Set

We often get requests for mixed knob sets for our passageway door sets. If you are familiar with our site and catalogue you will know that the Netsuke collection allows you to mix and match our lizard, frog, rabbit, and bumble bee knobs. What is less obvious but just as creative an invention, is to mix the knobs from our Hedgerow and Willow collections. As all 3 collections have a nature theme, we feel the tree canopies of Hedgerow or the swirling leaf orb of Willow work well with the animals in Netsuke and their textural back-plates. The last image below shows how designer Bonnie J. McIntire paired the willow knob with the bark back-plate from the lizard collection.

A recent order by designer Hillary Zeiss went to the next level for both color and collection mix. The door set was created using a pea green frog on one side with a blue green (vert gris) lizard on the other. The door set also had a dead bolt lock activated by using our beetle turn piece and this was also patinaed blue green.

An eclectic group of cabinet pulls were included in the order with fiddlehead ferns finished blue green to match the lizard knob and with a dragonfly, frog and gecko finished in a simple but complimentary light antique oil-rubbed patina.

The blue and blue patinas were made with varying intensities and applications of acetic acid applied to the surface of the bronze heated to 180 to 100 degrees. We use various commercially available concentrates to expedite the oxidation of the surface molecules and halt the process by sealing with wax to prevent a further chemical reaction. The light antique patina on the cabinet pulls was achieved with a cold application of a commercially made selenic acid, once the desired depth of color was achieved the piece was wiped with a wet rag before being sealed.

The swirling leaves of the willow knob paired with the bark back-plate from the lizard collection.