The allure of copper – Stone to Bowl

Alongside the traditional copper casting project I have done a copper/silver cast; using plumber’s copper and silver.

and two-part sand moulds. This is partly sustainable, with all materials being recycled; but the heat used is gas.

One of the pieces sold unfinished at ENOS 2018. The bowl has a metal ‘pebble’ inset, a blue heat patina and is almost clean copper on the exterior because I used a different greensand on the outside.

Some learning – try different sands to give cleaner surfaces but retain textures, cost in the silver, keep experimenting, copper is an attractive metal although challenging to work with.

100 days and Stone to Bowl

This photo shows the difference between a two-part sand mould and an open pour. The level of detail on the two part mould is far greater than on the open pour.

I had read that this was the case, but I’d not experimented myself previously.

Both pieces are ‘my-smelt’ copper with silver alloy, cast in oil sand. The piece on the right is made in a two-part mould. The piece on the left I heat-patinated after I’d cleaned it up. Both are from the same former, which is an Edwardian mourning brooch. I will make the more detailed piece into a necklace; the open pour piece is too heavy to wear, but is very tactile.

Iron cups

The iron pour at the Sculpture Workshop went well. (Steve and I ran the furnace under the eagle eye of George Beasley and Eden Jolly) This is the iron piece that I showed the sand mould for in my last post. The found metal, probably copper, from the beach is now included in the iron.

This cup has a flat piece of beach copper in it:-

And this has some copper nails that featured in a post in January:-

The heat of the iron has melted the copper through to the outside of the cup.

 

Getting Started

I’m heading back to the studio to start work on all the new ideas from my week at Goldsmith’s Getting Started course. First job will be the year planner. Fortunately I now have two – one from HSWalsh (a freebie in our goodie bag) and one from the Design Trust.

I also had a drink with the new owner of the fine silver bowl pictured on exhibit at Goldsmiths.

iron pour

I found my neighbour’s iron guttering on the rocks (the photo shows where it used to be)

and I took it to Scottish Sculpture Workshops. Where we melted it, along with other scrap iron (which Ross nobly ‘cracked’ while I did the sand bed for the furnace)

The molten iron was poured into a two-part sand mould of a small vessel form (and some other moulds)

This is the iron piece with runner and riser, tomorrow I’ll cut the extraneous bits off, but I rather like the patterns it makes in the sun.

Society of Designer Craftsmen

The bronze tripod bowl in the picture left the Mall Galleries for a new home.

Taking with it the patina from Scottish sea water and this seaweed.

And maybe some grains of sand from the cleaning process.

White Fox Gallery Opening tomorrow

These are my new plinths, made for me by Charlie Clark, ready for my solo exhibition at White Fox Gallery, Hirsel Estate.

The plinths are designed to ‘step’ across the centre of the gallery. I’ll take some pictures in the gallery, this is my front yard.

The exhibition opens tomorrow and runs til mid October. Drop by and see it.

Save

June pieces

Finally the sun broke through yesterday and I could take some photos of what I’ve been up to this week. This is a bronze bowl with wee legs, it’d be a tripod but there are four of them. It has a patina from seaweed soaked in sea water. It’ll be on show in London in August at the Society of Designer Craftsmen.

This is the first of the large bronze dishes to be finished, it has amazing texture, I think I’ll leave it without patina. It’ll be on show at my solo exhibition at White Fox.

This smaller textured bronze will be on show at White Fox, also.

This piece, again for White Fox, has copper wire through the bronze casting and sea water patina.

Workshops

I had a fun morning  showing Kat and Trisha how to sand-cast. I managed not to take pictures, but they both made bowls and shell pieces.

We worked outside as it was a stunning day (still is)

Just popped out for proof!

Anyway it reminded me that I have two further workshops scheduled for this year:

8th August Plantlore and Jewellery as part of Pittenweem Arts Festival

This is a brooch made at an earlier Plantlore workshop

 

and a week long sand casting workshop in The Algarve 13th to 20th November at Aqua Ventura.

 

A day in the sun

I went down to the rockpools today and used beach sand and sea water to clean a couple of my bronze vessels.

There was a green crab as well but s/he was camera shy.

I finished texturing the pieces with my favourite stone on my beach shelf.

I’m hoping that the sea water will patinate the bronze as part of the process.

I’m trying one piece with this whitened seaweed from around the high rock pools to see how it patinates.

I also rescued a piece of driftwood which may make a stand for a bowl.