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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I went up to the Scottish Sculpture Workshop last week with my three large mould boxes and here are the two bowls that were cast. One sand mould didn’t survive the journey, but these two bowls should look good once I’ve cut off the pouring cup and generally given them a bit of a clean and shine.
They looked a bit like satellite dishes on the beach today, enjoying the Scottish sunshine, but they are more tactile and a prettier colour.
The wee steel bowl in the last post has many incarnations. It has been 3D printed to use as a model for casting in green-sand (in bronze). It was sized up so the Damascus bowl can sit in it.
This is the mesh that was produced.
This is it scaled down and used for a silver and copper mixed metal cast. It sits in the wee bowl.
I have taken wax models of the outside and cast them in bronze using the beach-sand, and I have more wax models for future casts.
There is also a direct cast with tripod legs that I am patinating with seawater, so it is gradually getting greener.
Roddy and Malcolm did the bronze pour for my four sand moulds. They did an amazingly efficient job and I have four bronze vessels. Thank-you Roddy, Malcolm (and Graham who welded the pouring funnel frames.) Casting purists should look away now.
Vessel 1 is a quaich or tumbler cast in Cellardyke beach sand. The surface is sandy and the slight undercut at the lip has given great ‘flashing’
Vessel 2 uses the same form but is cast in oil sand and has a design inside. The bronze has create a lovely swirl pattern.
Vessel 3 is also oil sand but uses a copper bowl that I raised in the States. The metal cooled before it completed the form so it has an organic form to it.
Vessel 4 is more open in shape. It is cast in greensand so has a pinkish sheen. It has interesting internal texture, I think because the form was ceramic, so I was more cautious tamping down the inside.
As a bursary applicant to the Guild of Enamelers I got a place on the Scottish region’s annual workshop in Edinburgh. Maureen Carswell led the workshop on foil based pieces. I worked with a slightly heavier gauge and produced three and a half samples:-
Piece 1 was torch fired, a soft white enamel over a liquid clear flux.
Piece 2, a stitched vessel, was kiln fired- a black enamel on clear flux inside and the soft white on the outside. The copper is tied with binding wire
Piece 3 is a development of this stitched vessel design, but with white liquid flux inside under the sifted black and a clear flux outside.
Piece 4 is an unfinished dish, but is again soft white over a white liquid flux, with rather pleasing brush marks.
I finished the copper ring vessel, which is quite rough and ready, but I like the effect.
ring vessel in the evening sun
ring vessel base
rowan berries
I also tried some vessels where the granulation used is berries, as I wanted the colour and the organic, decomposition as a contrast to the more formal controlled appearance of Huycke’s work.
rowan berries and rose hip
juliacowie 