spring

25 Mar 2015

Paper becomes metal

A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside.   A.A. Milne

My husband had a couple of days holiday to use up before the end of the holiday year, so we sneaked a couple of days off and hoped to get some time outside in the spring sunshine.  We did manage that and jolly lovely it was too, but for an assortment of reasons – apathy largely – I didn’t get any worthwhile photos to share with you.  I had it in mind to post some cute little spring lambs, but the areas we visited were only just starting to lamb and the ones I did spot weren’t in a place where we could stop for photos.  So they will have to wait until another day.

Tulip bud, all bulbous and soon to burst into colour.
Tulip bud, all bulbous and soon to burst into colour.

As you can see above, the little Tête-á-tête daffodils in my garden are now in full bloom and are an absolute delight – so cheering to see out of the window.  I love any daffodils, but am especially fond of these compact little ones, perfect little miniature specimens.

I also have tulips starting to emerge too.  Whilst I love the blooms, I also enjoy the buds before they open – they’re often spherical and bulbous and amongst the leaves make lovely abstract shapes, especially if you can catch a few raindrops sitting on the leaves.

Because I have a tiny garden, when my bulbs are done, I pull them up and dry them ready to re-plant in autumn and then put my summer bedding in the same pots.  Consequently, my bulbs end up totally mixed up from one year to the next, so I’m never quite sure what any one individual bloom will be like, or any pot arrangement, adding a tiny frisson of excitement as they open.  Maybe I’m just easily excited.

 My work this week:

I’ve posted previously about the wild roses that I’ve made in paper, designing and cutting the components using the Silhouette Studio software and my Portrait cutter.  Whilst assembling one to stick onto a gift, I wondered if I could use the same basic structure with copper clay to make the same sort of flowers in metal.

I know that a lot of metal clay workers use the Silhouettes to actually cut thinly rolled clay for complex features like bezels and that was certainly one of the reasons I wanted the machine for myself.  But to date, I’m still having fun using the software and machine to make my own textures and design elements and I haven’t even tried cutting clay with it directly yet.

One of the original paper wild roses, alongside its metal counterpart.
One of the original paper wild roses, alongside its metal counterpart.

I wanted the roses to be fairly substantial in size, which would necessitate a decent thickness of sheet clay to work with, almost certainly beyond the cutting capacity of the Silhouette and I also wanted to shape the petals as I worked too – best done with wet clay.

A lot of the charm of actual wild roses is the curl and random shapes of the petals themselves and in this instance, I didn’t feel they should be too uniform in shape.  So instead, I used the cutter to create a template which I could cut around manually, allowing me to form each petal the same basic shape and size, but individually contoured, to give them the same natural variation you’d experience in real flowers.

Wild rose pendant in antiqued copper.
Wild rose pendant in antiqued copper.

The metal clay as a medium also allows a slightly different approach to details too – so the centre of the flower is more anatomically realistic, where the paper version is more of an impression of a real flower.  I did actually make the flower in pretty much the same way as the paper versions, in that I made each petal and allowed them to dry, then refined and assembled them onto a small circular base, adding the centre details last.

The large pendant has a simple loop on the back to hang from the chain, I didn’t want to bail, in this instance, to detract from the details of the flower.

Wild rose pendant made in copper metal clay.
Wild rose pendant made in copper metal clay.

Having made the large pendant, which is around 42mm (1.65″) in diameter, I wondered if I could work a smaller rose, to use on earrings etc.  I approached this slightly differently due to the size, creating my own cutter for the basic shape of the petals.  Other than that and simplifying the centre a little, the process was much the same.

With this pendant, I’ve applied the smaller wild rose to a basic textured circle frame, accompanied by a few rose leaves adjacent.  I have some other variants in progress to make into earrings, but at this point, my kiln was full anyway, so I have a second batch of pieces to fire shortly.

Circle pendant made in copper clay with a wild rose centre piece with accompanying leaves.
Circle pendant made in copper clay with a wild rose centre piece with accompanying leaves.

 

The wild rose circle pendant prior to firing.
The wild rose circle pendant prior to firing.

It is my habit with all metal clay work to keep a very detailed record of all pieces.  I keep a kiln log of the firing itself, with photos and measurements recorded in a separate log.  That way I know what brand of clay was used for a particular piece and when and how it was fired etc.  As I always like to see other artists pieces in progress, I’ll post a couple of pre-firing photos too.

Wild rose pendant in its finished state immediately before firing.
Wild rose pendant in its finished state immediately before firing.
14 May 2012

Spring green – such an optimistic colour

Firstly, apologies, I did promise that my next blog would be on the stages that a piece of copper clay goes through, but I need to retrospectively take some photos on another piece, for stages I overlooked when making the piece to be featured – a decision I only initially made once I’d started and progressed with the piece.

But we did get out on Saturday for a nice walk and some very welcome fresh air and I wanted to post the photographs I took, if only so that I can find them again.  That is, if the new ‘streamlined’ Blogger interface will allow me.  If it’s as slow and tedious as the last post I made proved to be, I may well not include many images after all!

Please click on any photographs to see a larger view.  If your browser has the option, clicking to open in a new tab or window will allow you to see it at the full size I prepared it at.

My husband had commitments in the morning, but when he returned, the weather was looking pretty decent, so we hurriedly decided not to waste any more of the day and made and ate some lunch, got ready and packed some refreshments for later in the day and headed out to one of our favourite spots, at Beacon Fell in Lancashire.

The young pine trees were all exploding with vibrant new foliage.  Trees in the better light were further progressed, but those in deeper shadow still bore their little papery sheaths over the new growth of needles.  The green of the emerging needles was almost unnaturally bright and in stark contrast to the darker older growth.  As I understand it, they only grow in this manner as young trees, developing needles differently as they age?

It’s a Lancashire County Council run forest park with a visitor centre, toilets, cafe that also serves ice creams (we had one and made like we were on holiday), lots of car parking salted throughout the woodland (and even using the main car park only costs £1 GB Pound per day) and an infinite variety of walking, with miles of well made paths snaking and criss-crossing through the trees and adjacent moorland – meaning that you can walk as much or little as you wish – with many paths with disabled access, there’s something suitable for everyone.  It’s our default ‘day out’ location as it’s about 20 miles from home, has everything we need, is open all year and I suspect that we often head there, because the drive to it is a pleasure in itself.  Perhaps our favourite time is in winter; on crisp clear days, especially mid-week, when we often have the place much to ourselves.  Sunny summer Sundays, not so much.

This little group of beech trees were just opening into leaf and catching a ray of sunshine – very momentarily – through the dense trees.  The colour was pure optimism; the brightest freshest perfect green of a new generation, in sharp relief to the brown of their past-foliage underneath, which will go on to decay and nourish the tree for the future.

We’ve visited so often over very many years (Mr Boo was in a Scout party that helped lay some of the paths, over 40 years ago) that we must now have seen it in every possible weather and time of year.  But each time we visit, there’s something different of interest and each season has its own particular pleasures.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I am especially fond of the wild species that grow at this time of year  – and especially those in deciduous woodland – the small delicate flowers that blossom on the woodland floor before more robust vegetation will steal their light.  We rounded a corner to find this lone little patch of delicate pink flowers, amongst the fallen, moss-engulfed logs, which I think are Pink Purslane, looking a little like a Stitchwort, but pink.

This weekends particular pleasure was that gorgeous emergence of spring flowers and early foliage, when everything is at its most pristine, with the promise of summer to come, but before leaves have been ravaged by weather and insects – when everything is at the most perfect and the colours most intense and vibrant.

In looking through my wild flower books to identify the plant above, I was struck by the gorgeous names of old fashioned English wild flowers, such evocative and descriptive names as Mouse-ear Hawkweed, Lady’s Bedstraw, Nipplewort, Frogbit and Butcher’s Broom.

Most of the ground in clearings and path edges amongst the coniferous areas had a new bright green carpet of Bilberry bushes with their gorgeous, almost hidden, tiny bell-shaped flowers in a delicate translucent red – what my wild flower book called “nodding globular flowers”. I really couldn’t do them justice and was struggling to even focus properly on them as they truly were nodding in the very brisk breeze, whole branches moving several inches back and forth, so this is the best I managed.  They’re so pretty, it’s well worth bending down and turning back a few leaves to have a look at them – they look like berries at a casual glance.

After our walk, as it was drawing close to the time that they lock the gates on the smaller in-tree car parks, we relocated to one of the quieter road-side spots with a good view, to have a bite to eat and a warm drink and we parked next to a field with a handful of sheep, each with a single lamb.  They must have thought that we were ‘the man’ that brings their supper as they all came galloping over, baa-ing loudly for their supper and were a little put-out that we obviously weren’t who they’d hoped to see.

My work this week:

I worked on two significant – and rather different – projects this week – one was to create some more copper clay components for designs I have in mind.  It’s the sort of work where I have to work in sessions amongst other work, as it takes time to dry enough to handle for filing and shaping, then it needs a little longer to dry thoroughly until it can be fired – then that process ends a little drawn out as I do them in small batches as I’m torch firing – then pickle and polish etc. etc.  This is a batch of finished components between filing and firing; I can’t resist polishing them a little to reveal the metal appearance as it gives me a better idea of how they might look as finished.

I had a couple of orders for rings this week, so once I had my eye in and was set up for ring making, I made a few more to replenish my craft fair stock – going back to earlier designs that I haven’t made for a while.  I don’t know how I feel about making rings – I enjoy the process in itself, but worry about the whole sizing issue – perhaps because my fingers change size a dozen times a day and I rarely wear fashion rings for that reason.  So I worry about someone getting a ring I’ve made and not being able to wear it, even though I know it was sent the size they ordered – what if they measured wrong themselves, or their fingers swell as much as mine do?  Earrings a little longer or shorter than expected wouldn’t be a deal-breaker, but a ring has to be spot on.

Of the designs I’ve made over the last few days, I think I might now offer a few of the more repeatable designs on-line and see how they are received.  I’m happy to sell them at craft fairs as people can simply try them on and choose one they like, but on-line has always felt more problematic and a little uncomfortable.  The wire wrapped rings are the ones I’ve sold in person in the past as they can be made with any bead with a hole and inexpensively enough for impulse treats.

I love the colour of these Czech pressed melon beads against the copper and have enough to offer these as made to order rings, along with the more delicate rosebud knot ‘stacker’ variant of my hammered band ring, as shown below.  I’ll see how I feel about them in a few days time.