a little bit of colour...

Today I completed the new base and I'm much happier with the result. You can just get a glimpse of it along the bottom edge, when it's completed that part will be a marbled gold and will hopefully provide a delicate "underlineing" or framing of the arrangement above.

The opening at the top has a green gold ( aokin ) lining that I will work further and will actually be the start of the composition. I was very happy with the texture I managed to create so I did a quick patination to get some idea of the effect of solid colour on the form and overall feel of the piece. So far so good...in my opinion ;-) oh,...it's about 9.5cm across, a little less than 4 inches. If you double click on the image you can see it in huge size.

...a bit more.

I refined the top today and made the base. I reckon the bottom looks rubbish so I'm busy doing another one that is far more subtle...trust me, the view from the front, of the base at this stage, looks rediculous. When I get the new shape right I'll let you see both. I'm very pleased with the top though, especially the texure. It's going to sing when it is deep red. I'm thinking of making the base gold and a discreet liner to the opening at the top in gold too....yummy!

...and now for something completely different.

I've put my dragonfly away for the moment, I'll get it out in a few days time and write up my thoughts about it and a short description of the process that lead me to this result.

I am brimming with new ideas now, all clamouring in my mind for attention. So to help me re-focus on this next project I started pushing metal around yesterday. I just took these images this morning, it's a lovely clear blue sky and the light in the studio is wonderful. It's still very icy outside and the studio is a bit cold but I'll warm up quickly as I get back to hammering and annealing the metal. I'll try and keep you abreast with my progress...;-)

This time I'm aiming at a subtle, natural sort of stone texture on copper. You may be able to see some of that finish in the images. The patina I will probably use at the end will be a deep red gloss. I'm toying with butterflies now, an entirely different different feel to dragonflies...softer, fluttery and fun. A butterfly gavotte.

...the end!

well, it's finally come. I've completed my dragonfly fugue at last. I'll write something about the title when I get my breath back....for now here's a link to a short slide show of images that I hope will reveal what I've been trying to express.

A huge "thank you!" to my mate, Gavin. Brilliant photos....you could do this for a living, Gav ;-)

.....and just one, obligatory, shot to end on my blog to end off this personal metal odyssey. p.s. please click on the image to enlarge it....after all, " I'm worth it!" ....as they say in the cosmetic ad's.

...a little bit more

This is the underside after patination and with the silver "water" base in place. I finished the silver with a very fine "ishi-arashi" texture because the highly polished finish just looked cheap and harsh. It felt too "noisy" for the feeling I've been pushing towards.

You can see the cut-outs for the wings ( they are not yet in place in this shot ), behind the leaves. When in place they add yet another little surprise, glowing in the dark as they do. Because I thinned the mother of pearl quite a lot to allow light to shine through from behind, it also means that the veins are visible when seen from behind. The shadows cast by the leaves also play across the back of the wings when seen from the front, giving the impression that the dragonfly is flying in their shadow. It's all turned out to be quite kinetic!

A bit of piercing work

It's been a while since I provided any idea of what I was up to with my pet rock project so here's a peek. The underside of the rock was to be left open to allow light to shine through the mother of pearl wings when the piece was picked up. I experimented with a couple of options and finally settled on this "woven" effect being created by overlapping leaves. I need to be sure that the whole space was reasonably evenly covered but at the same time to suggest a random and natural arrangement...I think it worked out OK.

The material is a variety of brass which allowed me to develop a very pleasing and warm ochre colour. The chiselled texture on the leaves, a combination of kata-kiri and maru-bori ( gouge work ) allowed me to actually use two different tones of colour, this really added to the painterly effect I was after. The other thing that I did to heighten that feel was to model the flowers by only very roughly working them with a simple rounded punch. They were then gilded.

The first image shows my jewellers bench and the 3 different piercing saws I use. The biggest one is necessary for those cuts that simply can't be reached on larger than usual pieces, like some of the work on this back plate. The middle one is my standard saw and one I've been using for nearly 30 years...it's my old faithful and feels like part of my hand. They just don't make them like this any more. The smallest one there is actually an antique German one. A lovely birthday present from my mate in Berlin, Karl Wunderlich. It's nearly 200 years old but it very precise and handles very well. It's especially good for very delicate work.

If you have a fast internet connection and you'd like to see these images in higher resolution, and much bigger, you can simply click on them.

It's been a little while...

Despite the "no show" here on my blog, I've not been entirely idle. I've been plodding away on a number of related projects and with a bit of luck and a tail wind I hope to finish the year with a bit of a flourish.

This is a shot of the dragonfly I took a little while ago, do you like the "arty" soft focus around the edges? I'm working on the underside and base of the piece now...and will probably "unveil" the finished piece in a couple of weeks...the iron patina is developing slowly, like a fine wine ;-)

Just so you know, the body of the dragonfly is not really in it's fished state in the image nor are the wings really. I've got a few more tricks to apply.

...and on a completely different note, pun intended, my lovely wife bought a CD yesterday that I've been playing to death. Missy Higgins; On a Clear Night. I absolutely love her voice...you might too. Here's a link to her beautiful song "Where I stood"

Namaste, Ford

some more quotes by Odilon Redon

Just for Doug, here are a few more quotes, from Monsieur Redon, that I particularly like.

"It is precisely from the regret left by the imperfect work that the next one can be born."
I think we all feel this one to be very true.

"What distinguishes the artist from the dilettante? Only the pain the artist feels. The dilettante looks only for pleasure in art."
This is, I think, the reason it is so difficult, perhaps even impossible, for these two to communicate.

"The artist yields often to the stimuli of materials that will transmit his spirit." I really adore this sentiment.

and this one, I'm particularly drawn to...by it's very suggestiveness.

"My drawings inspire and are not to be defined. They determine nothing. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous world of the undetermined. They are a kind of metaphor."

Genius!

I could kick myself...I just stumbled on this site.

I had this idea some time ago, when a young chap was amazing us all with fantastically complicated origami creatures. I thought no-one would take me seriously....like they do anyway ;-) ( I really do need smilies on this blog...I ought to look into that )

Anyway, it's hilarious and I fully expect this chap to become a celebrity just like that American artist who produces hand drawn money, J. S. G. Boggs

Mr Boggs makes a very important comment about the value of money and I think this "genius" makes a similar point about art. ;-)

Namaste.

Odilon Redon

This is a painting by the French artist Odilon Redon. 1840 ~ 1916. It's titled " Silence"
He seems to have been quite a productive sort of man and appears to generally have been content to stick to his own artistic concerns with almost no reference to developments in the greater art world.

I'm feeling a bit lazy this morning so rather than try and sum his work up here's an excerpt from "Symbolism" , by Michael Gibson.

"Standing outside trends and movements, Odilon Redon, a native of Bordeaux, produced a rich and enigmatic corpus: 'Like music', he declared, 'my drawings transport us to the ambiguous world of the indeterminate.' In contrast with Goya's monsters and Kubin's nightmare visions, his work is imbued with a melancholy passivity. While origins of this disposition must be sought in the artist's experience, the overall effect is entirely consistent with the moods of Symbolism ... : nocturnal, autumnal, and lunar rather than solar. During the early part of Redon's career, the nocturnal did indeed predominate. Only later did he admit the light of day. His mature production began around 1875 when Redon entered the shadowy world of charcoal and the lithographer's stone. This period yielded sequences such as [Guardian Spirit of the Waters (1878)] and [Cactus Man (1881)]. Redon made it clear that they had been inspired by his dreams, and they inspire in the spectator a conviction like that of dreams.

"It was only in the 1890s that he began to use the luminous, musical tones of pastel and oils. These became the dominant media of the last fifteen years of his life. Redon's art was always commanded by his dreams, but the thematic content of his work over his last twenty years is more densely mythical, brimming with new-found hope and light which rose quite unexpectedly out of the depths of the artist's personality. This is particularly apparent in the various canvasses depicting the chariot of Apollo, the god of the sun."

I've also been drawn to many of the ideas he writes about in his diaries to himself. This one is a current favourite.

"Materials have their own secrets to reveal, they have their own genius. It is through them that the oracle speaks"