In modern interior design, metal paintings are gaining popularity. In the author's works, masters use both the latest and classic techniques. The most spectacular works of arts and crafts are those that combine old methods of manual metal processing and innovative ones. With the advent of new materials and high-performance tools, such types of fine art as steel graphics, metallography, and metal painting with a 3D effect have developed.
To make some masterpieces, you need special equipment and special qualifications. But every creative person can create metal paintings using the technique of embossing, decoupage, wire drawing using some patience. Such works will be unique and not inferior to design work.
Technique
Depending on the artist’s intention or tasks set by the customer, the craftsmen use different technologies for working with metal. Their decision is influenced by the final appearance of the picture, the thickness of the material, the size of the product, the relief and color scheme, geometric complexity of the image, detail and many other factors. In order to give the necessary appearance to metal paintings, methods are used:
- Electrochemical processing to obtain various textures of metal surfaces and volumetric images like a stamp. Especially popular are paintings on brass and copper plates.
- With the help of multi-level art etching (chemical, galvanic, ion-plasma), relief drawings and various textures are created. Etching is often combined with painting with colored enamels, blackening, coating the finished product with a thin layer of tin, applying patina. The technology allows the reproduction of images of any complexity with detailing of elements up to 0.05 mm thick.
- Obtaining an exact metal copy of an object or three-dimensional image will allow the method of electroforming - electrolytic deposition of non-ferrous metals on the matrix. Technology opens up unlimited possibilities for creative ideas, and artists often resort to electroforming.
- Engraving as a particularly elegant and aesthetic form of artistic metalworking remains popular. Masters today rarely manually engrave drawing with cutters. For this, there are electromechanical and laser tools that can be used to quickly create large-area works.
With these and other techniques, magnificent metal panels and picture frames are made. To obtain modern abstract works, masters often combine several technologies, also using welding, forging, riveted joints, chemical decoration of metals and other techniques.
Steel graphics
For the first time, a new art movement was demonstrated in 1984 by artists from Cape Town. Today, metal paintings made in the steel-graphic technique have gained great popularity not only in the design of residential and office interiors, but also for decorating the exterior walls of buildings, terraces, fences, billboards. The contour elaborately carved from sheet steel reproduces in detail the graphic pattern on the background of a light wall. The impression of a three-dimensional composition is created as a result of the tonal contrast of the foreground and background with partial shade between them.
From a single steel sheet, it is filigree to make curly cutting, practically not limited to geometric shapes, allows modern equipment - high-precision plasma cutters. The role of the cutter is performed by a plasma jet, which copes with any metals up to 200 mm thick. Therefore, despite the refined detailing, the picture from a sheet of metal is very durable.
This type of decorative and applied art continues to develop, and artists find new, sometimes non-standard ideas for the embodiment of creative ideas. The pioneers of steel graphics made black paintings, where a light wall created a contrasting background, on which the shadow was well defined. Now masters use metals of different tones and combine several methods of processing the material.
Printing images on metal
Today's technology allows you to transfer with amazing accuracy a copy of any full-color image — photographs, paintings, or graphic works — onto a metal plate. Copies are durable, durable and are the fastest way to create a picture on the metal. What is the name of this printing method?
Reproduction of an image on a plate of anodized aluminum by means of organic dyes is called metallography. The color rendering and quality of such paintings is superior to printing. The metal base can have a glossy, matte, satin texture and color in gold, bronze, silver or one of the local colors.
A type of inkjet printing using ink that cures under the influence of ultraviolet radiation is called UV printing. The color rendering of this method is inferior to metallography, but it allows you to transfer images to the surface of any alloy, which gives ample opportunity for the embodiment of creative ideas.
Like any reproduction, paintings made by UV printing and metallography cannot be called works of art. But artists use these methods as a way to print copyrighted photographs and convey individual elements in their unique works.
Metal painting
This type of art differs from printing in that the artist himself realizes his plan on a sheet, and each such picture becomes unique. Since adhesion to most paints on metal surfaces without a primer is poor, each author invents his own painting technique and selects material by trial and error. The most common base alloys are aluminum and duralumin, since they are light and have good light reflection, brass is less commonly used. These sheet metals shine through and shine through the paint, and with some processing their luster together with reflective properties create the illusion of movement. Unfortunately, the photo of metal paintings only remotely conveys this effect. Among the dyes, masters choose acrylic or automotive, less often oil paints, they also use patination, acid treatment, and other chemical methods.
Chasing
This is one of the oldest methods of decorating metal, which masters often combine with other technological processes. Chasing is attractive due to the volume of multi-level reliefs that create light and contrasting shadows in the composition. Blacking and patination give products a vintage look, and with the help of acids and dyes you can get interesting results for abstract images.
There is an alternative to the hammered art technique - metal plastic. Due to the accessibility and simplicity of techniques, this type of decorative creativity can be mastered independently. In the Soviet period, even schoolchildren mastered it. Unlike coinage, in which a metal deformation is formed by impact, metal plastic is produced on very thin metal sheets by pressing with special tools. The metal picture created in this way will not only be a decoration of the house, it will be unique.
Collage and decoupage
If you collect in the house all the unnecessary metal parts of a small size, then from them you can make an interesting picture in the steampunk style. The elements in the decoupage are glued to a base, not necessarily a sheet of metal. This can be an abstract or plot composition, which is easy to create thanks to the rich selection of modern adhesives, various primers, putties, spray paints. Ideas for works and decoupage techniques from metal are presented on the Internet. For example, paintings by Lithuanian artist Arturas Tamasauskas will serve as an excellent source of inspiration. Since in each work a different set of parts is pasted, the pictures also become unique. Well-designed author's works will be an excellent gift and an extraordinary decoration of the interior.
Bent wire paintings
Funny patterns can be made from ordinary soft wire. Since 1997, the American artist CW Roelle, while still a student, laid the foundation for this kind of fine art. He creates metal paintings from wire according to his own drawings. Sometimes these are simple stories, but there are also intricate, very dense illustrations that require several weeks to complete.
Such works can also be made independently, for which the tin wire, which is pinpointed in separate places with a soldering iron, is best suited. The finished product is covered with black acrylic paint and fixed on a light basis. The process of making a picture of bent wire is very exciting. Gradually, you can move from simple to more complex drawings, which will become real copyrighted works.