The end

What a semester this has been. I feel accomplished having been able to learn about and create artwork in a medium I knew absolutely nothing about. It was extremely intimidating beginning the class, I always felt behind, even when I was caught up. There was just soooo much to learn and soooo many processes to do anything. So much setting up, measuring, planning, and making things perfect. That pretty much describes the exact opposite of how I normally work. I was completely out of my comfort zone in pretty much every way. But despite all that I was still able to learn and create, so I feel like I tackled a huge challenge and survived. This is why I like taking level 1 classes despite being a senior; learning new mediums and techniques helps me become more well rounded as an artist. I would have never ever EVER been able to do anything with metal before this class, and now I can make rings for my friends! Even if I don't continue this medium later on, it is exciting to learn new things, after all the art world has worlds of different types and styles, why restrict yourself to one? And perhaps now if I ever want to be able to work metal into my art, I will know how.

But I'm happy not to be soldering anymore. :P

Finishing hollow ring

So finishing up this ring was much less painful than I was originally thinking it might be. But after lots and lots of studio time, I managed to finish it, and I suppose it turned out well. Cant say I will ware it every day, but its cool to show off to people at least.

Finally I could saw the top plate and solder that to the bottom plate. One of the hardest parts was sawing properly. I ended up sawing a connecting line to the stars, and then had to saw the ring hole. Very difficult to not saw too much and vise versa. Once I had a rough sawing finished, I could solder my second plate on. This time it was a bit easer, as I used easy solder, and I used what I had learned with the first plate, making it much more successful. practice makes perfect. or in this case, less painfully tedious.

 Before I soldered for a second time however, I took the time I didnt have access to a saw blade to do some salt etching, one of my favorite effects. I tried to make a swirling pattern, somewhat like an abstracted version of the sky, and I wanted it to be more busy, as the front and back plates are both rather simple. This turned out well I think.

 You can see the finished soldering and salt etched sides.

But dont forget a sample! Still a noob as metal, so of course I make mistakes, like cutting the plastic wrong. sigh. 

Once I had the pieces all sawed to my satisfaction, it was filing filing filing. And then some more filing. After what seemed like hours of filing, I was almost done. It was a bit tricky to get smooth, seamless corners and still keep my etched texture on the brass sides. 

From here I went crazy with the patina, trying to get a dark sky affect. I also tried to get a gradient affect, for which I sanded lightly. 

Aries Constellation. I am an aries. 

Here you can see the etching better. I copper plated the inner grooves of the brass with the pickle liquid, and then used the patina on that to make it dark and give it contrast. Still thinking maybe I want to paint it bluish, not sure. 

Opposite side. This is the big dipper, one we all recognize. For the stars, I had already tapped in the designs, but I used a tiny file and a dapper to scratch away some of the patina, to make the stars brighter. 

Here is the finished piece, worn as it would be. Fits my finger perfectly, yay. 

Quite the project, but this one took the least time of all the others, probubly because I at least somewhat knew what I was doing now. I used almost all the techniques we used, and even got half-way good at soldering (but I still hate it). 

all of my sketches and planning for this project;