Paper thin electrolytically anodized tantalum sheet
Anodization of titanium, tantalum and niobium takes advantage of oxidation to create a surface layer on the metals. The surface oxidation refracts light as different colors. These pics are from a one-day anodizing workshop where we colored titanium, tantalum, and niobium.
Electrolytically anodized titanium sheet; flat and textured
One way to anodize is electrolytically with a DC rectifier, the same type of electronic equipment used in electroforming and electrolytic etching.
Copper metal clay pieces by Pat Accorinti (right) and Sherry Cordova - before firing, alongside copper wire for color comparison
Friends Pat Accorinti, Kathleen Gordon, and I are going to be giving a demo to the local metal clay guild on Feb 21st. The demo will include a hands on session for members to use the new Art Clay World copper clay product.
We thought we should try it out first, and here are pics from our first session with the new copper product.
Copper end caps after firing, alongside unfinished copper wire bracelet. Notice the color difference and oxidation on the fired clay
Making a set of end caps for this bracelet was the idea I had in mind.
Hand knit copper wire bracelet in progress
Learning the properties of the new clay made the process take longer than constructing the piece from tubing and sheet; so I reminded myself that speed wasn’t the reason we were doing this. 🙂 Texturing the clay would have been a good reason to choose this method over soldering. The person who the bracelet is being made for likes clean simple lines, so the copper clay end caps are simple and soon to be cleaned up.
Oven mitt with evidence of fire from kiln heat
The manufacturers suggested firing schedule for the clay is to heat the kiln up to 1778 deg F and put the pieces in the hot kiln for 30 minutes, then remove the pieces from the hot kiln and immediately quench. I need different gloves for this in the future, or I need to wet the gloves ahead of time so they don’t catch fire each time. 🙂 After placing the items in the hot kiln, I decided to use casting flask tongs to remove the items from the kiln instead of my shorter copper tongs.
Copper oxidation knocked off during quench
Quenching the copper was dramatic: my gloved hand in a hot kiln, the usual sizzle of the hot metal hitting the water, and then I watched oxidation come off the outside of the pieces. The inside of the pieces was still coated with oxidation, so those pieces visited a pickle pot.
Copper pieces after kiln firing and quenching and before pickling (pieces by Sherry Cordova and Pat Accorinti)
Chunky is the name I’d started using in my head for the Pileated Woodpecker steel wire sculpture. Looking at Chunky I realized that some quick modifications to the gut could be made with my hands to slim down the sculpture. I bent the connection point between the legs and modified the long line that ran from the neck to the tail. And, voila! Chunky needs a new name. Perhaps “Pilar”….
During the second day of Thomas Hill’s wire sculpture workshop, we chose a drawing or photo of an animal to use as a reference. Choosing the drawing or photo has a big part to play in the final outcome.
Reference photos
If the photo shows the animal at an angle, only shows parts of the animal, or is short on detail, then the animal will be harder to recreate in wire. I wish I’d have had all these photos while I was in the workshop.
Pileated Woodpecker Drawing
Drawing the outline of the creature helps determine the rough shape, which I did based on the photo in the upper left corner of the collection above.
Steel wire, and pen for scale
We start with steel wire from spools, so knowledge of where to start, and which parts of the creature to create in what order is key.
Pileated Woodpecker Steel Wire Sculpture
When someone with a natural resource management degree saw my sculpture and identified the bird as if seeing one in the wild, I was satisfied that the wire is pretty representative of the pileated woodpecker. Even so, the bird looks chunkier than a live bird would be. One line of wire down the gut was too long, and I may do a little surgery on the bird before attaching him to a piece of copper. I am brewing an idea for a half round copper form to attach the woodpecker on so it can hang vertically on the wall as if it’s on a tree.
Last Spring I took a weekend wire sculpture workshop from Thomas Hill at Scintillant Studio, and almost completed a wire outline of a piranha skull. I posted a picture of the skull and the work in progress here.
Piranha Skull
A friend of Tom’s had given him a piranha skull they’d found. The skull was one of many that he uses to teach students how to concentrate on the outlines of figures. The first exercise was to draw the skull as an outline.
Piranha Skull and Pileated Woodpecker Drawings
We then made some joins using steel wire fragments to practice the techniques we’d be using to connect the wires in our sculptures.
Stainless Steel Wire Joins & Shapes
We created our first wire sculpture of the skull we’d chosen and drawn.
Electroformed etched glass and organic objects, and objects to be electroformed. Artist: Susan Shahinian
My friend Susan Shahinian was kind enough to give an in depth demonstration of electroforming to the local metal clay guild, her second time doing so. When I saw the first demo I didn’t take many pictures; this time I did. And, I took note of the equipment needed to electroform, so this first post is dedicated to sharing that information. Note that these lists are short and there are many places who sell equipment and supplies for electroforming.
The priciest piece of equipment you’ll probably want is a bench DC power supply with which you can vary the current and the voltage to the piece you are electroforming. The power supply is also known as a ‘rectifier’ or ‘linear variable power supply’ or ‘full wave rectifier’ or ‘variable bench power supply’. You can find instructions to make your own AC to DC converter. Off-the-shelf units, such as the one in the photo below, make it easier to get started as they are already built and tested.
Last Sunday I spent a couple of hours as a show docent at the ACCI Gallery in Berkeley, California.
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My piece “The Earth is Our Ashtray” Ashtray is in the show along with the work of over 40 artists from the Metal Arts Guild based in San Francisco.
Copper ashtray edge detail: grass and plants trying to take root
I was very pleased when a friendly woman told me that the ashtray made her think of ashtrays she remembers from when she was growing up: styles from the 1940s and 1950s. The ashtrays she remembers often had a tall center and curved and angled sides. I was pleased because those are the ashtray shapes that were in my head when I was creating the copper ashtray.
Forming copper over large mushroom stake
To form the tray, first I used shears and a large mushroom stake, then I moved on to using a shot bag ,and then an anvil with a nice pointy horn.
Adjusting the copper ashtray on a shot bagAnvil used to sharpen fold of copper. The anvil needed some cleaning before it could be used….
In the years since I made a certain filigree component, I forgot which gauge wires I used. I also forgot that I’d annealed several times during the process, an oversight which was easily remedied after the small twisted strands broke a few times and I spent a few seconds thinking about it. Turns out I liked the large wire combo better for what I have in mind.
20 gauge fine silver + twisted doubled strand of 28 gauge fine silver (top left half of the picture)
18 gauge fine silver + twisted doubled strand of 26 gauge fine silver (bottom right half of the picture)
Fine silver twisted wire components
Today’s samples could become a part of a filigree hinged cuff idea that is in the process of moving from my mind into silver. Yesterday I flattened wire and made fine silver diamonds that could maybe – possibly – perhaps also be part of the final design.
Fine silver diamond sheet shapes
The other day I made these
Variations of wrapped wire and flattened wire
And, tomorrow or someday soon, I’ll get back to making consistent versions of these
Photography experiment: Light vs. dark top of photo
I recently attended a lecture by a photographer who specializes in art jewelry and other art photography. Someone asked him about the graded backgrounds popular in the US. When he pointed out that the dark part of the graded background is always at the top of the picture, I began to wonder if I’d ever taken a picture with the light part of the background at the top.
Unable to find an example of this, I deliberately took pictures of the same sterling silver jewelry components with the background in both orientations.
The photographer mentioned that the reason for the dark part being at the top of the photos is that the eyes will ‘travel’ off the top of the photo if the top portion of the photo is lighter than the rest.
Photography framing experiment: Light at top of photo at left; consistent color on top of photo at right
As I was sorting through photographs from a trip to Point Reyes Lighthouse, I noticed that the sky behind one of the building photos did indeed seem to entice my eyes to look at and then travel off the top of the photo more so than when the sky was not in the frame.
