in front of you. The artist usually has to wait for the work to
cool down before seeing the effect. Sometimes a patina
may overreact or under-perform, which is impossible
to correct.
Cold patinas are done with a special chemical
compound which bonds to bronze without the aid of high
heat and can be applied like paint. This requires a delicate
and fine touch from the artist's hand. Fine details are often
done with single-hair brushes. Should an artist have
problems setting the flesh tones, shadows, or depth
of the sculpture the entire work is ruined.
With today's advanced chemical mixtures patinas
come in hundreds of colors with unlimited color brightness.
Patinas can also be made to give bronze sculptures a
realistic stone or marble appearance. The same way the
discovery of bronze launched a new era in fine art, today the
discovery of Lucite as a fine art media is having a similar
impact.
Lucite is an acrylic material made and
t r a d e m a r k e d by Dupont Chemicals .  The main
ingredients include a blend of the highest-grade acrylics and
plastics available. The final result is an ultra-clear plastic
with astonishing optical qualities. But the discovery of Lucite
alone did not give birth to the Lucite figurative sculpture.
This would have to wait for the artist and pioneer,
Fredrick Hart, to begin his experiments with Lucite as a
fine art media.
Fredrick Hart is a man whose genius you would
place among the greatest minds of human history. In
the 1970's he undertook the supreme effort of casting Lucite
and through countless ruined attempts of trial and