Monday 24 May 2010

A pair of gold sakura design menuki


These are a pair of gold menuki I've just completed. They were made in a 22ct gold alloy comprising gold and silver. This particular alloy is called ao-kin in Japanese, green gold. The technique I used to create them is called uchi-dashi and is a process of slowly moving and manipulating a thin sheet of metal into a full, 3 dimensional sculpture. The metal is held in warm pitch and formed by means of small punches driven by a hammer. You can see a sequence of images detailing the making as well as some more images of the finished menuki by following this link.

This was the original design I came up with...the final gold versions are pretty similar I feel.

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