My Butterfly Gavotte

As promised....I know, I know... I rarely keep them but here you go. The link to a short slide show of images of the completed piece, including some tight macro shots. I think Gavin has done a brilliant job of capturing the colours and textures of the work so no doubt I'll have to pay him well with raw fish....he does love his sushi.

I write up a bit of an explanation of the techniques, materials and inspiration etc, tomorrow. It's late now and I deserve a good nights sleep. I've a tsuba, to inlay with tiny yellow orchids, that I need to be fresh and sharp for in the morning...

Namaste,

Ford

I'm ready for my close up, Mr Demille...

The copper vase is now completed, we, obviously I mean Gavin, just got through doing the photography earlier today, but the images need to be processed before I can reveal all. In the meantime, by way of a teaser here's a close up of the surface of the vase after I patinated it....I'm a happy bunny :-)

I should have the final images on-line later today....I did some carving of white mother of pearl....to portray magnolia flowers, which are inlaid in the copper. The effect is quite pretty I think. The butterfly flying across from the other side seems to have worked too...at least that's what people who have seen it say. Intrigued....? I'll try not to keep you waiting much longer ;-)

Chameleon brooch

Some of you may have seen the images I posted on the Iron Brush forum showing the initial stages of the making of this brooch. I actually completed it a little while ago but only got round to taking some photos this morning. So here it is....gilded and enamelled. My generous wife had me make it as a donation to be auctioned to raise money for our youngest son, Joel's school. He goes to a Montesorri school called Chameleons...hence the subject of the brooch ;-)

Here's a link to some more images of the making of the piece and a few other views.http://picasaweb.google.com/tsubaman/ChameleonBrooch# You can view some of the images in very close up too, the effect of the enamel and the gilding is quite fun, I think. It's just a pity it is all so tiny. It was very liberating doing this little piece and it reminded me of the joy I take in working metal in this way...I've got a few, slightly more ambitious, ideas in mind as a consequence.

The work on the copper vase has been going ahead very smoothly and the butterfly is all but done. I've been carving magnolia flowers in white mother of pearl to inlay on a shibuichi branch on the opposite side to the butterfly. I'll get some more images of that project on-line in a day or two...I wouldn't want to spoil you ;-)

a bit of bling!

This is the underside of my little vase/pot/sculpture....I'm happy with the contrast of texture and the gilding. I made a stamp of my initial "F" and will probably use this on these sort of pieces in the future, I've got a series planned and I've already ordered the boxes!

I'll spend the week-end drawing Jasmine flowers and leaves and preparing some alloys to make the butterfly... I've got an interesting combination in mind. You'll have to come back next week for the next installment. I hope you've enjoyed the process so far.

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.