Orchid kagamibuta

I completed this latest piece just before Christmas, you may have seen some of the images I posted on the forum showing the work in progress. As soon as we get the forum's problems sorted I'll write a little more about this work and end off that thread properly. In the meantime, if you're interested, you can see some preliminary photos by visiting my Picassa gallery here.

If you double click on any of the images you'll see a much larger image, and if you then use the magnifying feature, at top right ( you'll see a little magnifying glass icon ) you can use that to see the image full size...which is ridiculously bigger than the real thing! You can also chose to view the images as a slide show.

The bowl is raised out of a sheet of 1mm thick steel and the eyelet at the back is made in Japanese green gold ( Ao-kin ). The inset disc is also steel, with the flowers in silver, gold and brass. I braided the cord using some rattan-like cord Jo found in a bead shop. I used a Japanese kumihimo technique, which I quite enjoyed. I think I'll explore that process a bit more in the future. I wanted the cord to echo a woven basket, the sort I've seen orchids displayed in, in the East, as well as hint at jungle vines.

The whole idea behind the piece was to try and create a tightly framed nature scene that at the same time was both a painting and a sculpture. As always, the mood and atmosphere was of
most importance to me. I'm quite pleased with the result myself.
I was particularly happy with this close up and tightly cropped shot. Sort of reminds me of the sort of tones you often see in a Rembrandt. Of course, while he was probably the best handler of oil paint and could engrave copper plate quite well he was rubbish when it came to inlaying and carving steel....still, we can't expect him to have done everything, thank goodness! ;-)



As with most images on this blog, double clicking on any of them will give you a much bigger picture.