Well, it's been four weeks since I applied the patina.  Turns out this part, being patient, has been the toughest part of the whole process.  The color hasn't changed much since I applied it.  It did get a little lighter and there has been some slight discoloration in a few areas, but really, if you weren't obsessively combing over every inch of it, every day, you wouldn't have noticed.  Impatience finally got the best of me about a week ago.  I decided to start working it over with a tooth brush.  I brushed off quite a bit of excess patina, all of it coming off in little green clouds, but for as much as I was removing the excess, I was also rubbing the powder into the metal.  I've done it three times now, and there are some small areas of raw metal showing throughout the piece, but there really hasn't been much rust happening.  It rained a few nights this week, so I moved it next to the door both nights in hopes that the moisture in the air might give it a little push.  It does look a lot better than it did a month ago, but it's still really green.

I also decided it was finally time to apply the blue patina to the copper foiled base.  As expected, it created a beautiful mix of varying shades of blue, which definitely softened the green of the sculpture.  Without that sharp contrast against the shiny copper, the green looks a little more… natural?  However, one problem has popped up.  The copper coated nails, which I was hoping would just blend in with the copper foil, are actually leaving rusty greenish brown spots in the blue patina.  The copper coating must not have survived, or maybe it was too thin.  Either way, the steel under the copper coating is reacting to the patina and leaving rust spots.  Didn't see that coming.  If it were more organic looking, I *might* be able to roll with it, but it's not.  It's following a few different patterns of nails.  This will not do.  My girlfriend suggested cleaning the affected areas off, putting a dab of rustoleum over the nail heads and trying to reapply the patina to those areas.  I tried it on one nail in the back last night and reapplied the patina tonight and it seems to have worked.  I cleaned off the other nails tonight and will give it a shot with the rest of them this week.  Hopefully that'll solve the problem.

Funny.  The part I want to rust isn't rusting, and the part I didn't expect or want to rust, is rusting.  Well, I'll keep you posted.

I've spent the better part of the last month listening to three albums: The debut releases from Alt-J and Django Django, and the solo disc from Jim James of My Morning Jacket.  I wasn't a fan of MMJ when I first heard them about 6 or 7 years ago, but I'm going to have to give them another shot… when I can finally stop listening to his solo disc.  Beautiful and haunting, this is the first song I heard from it and I was immediately enamored.