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;

Hollow ring project

Been working on our last project. I started out with a lot of sketches and designs, this project was particularly hard to figure out what I wanted to do. Not sure why, but maybe its because I am rather uninterested in big rings.

I finally came up a design I like. Its a bit simplistic, but I think it is interesting enough and will certainly be a challenge, especially with the amount of time we have to work. 

From here I made a paper model of what I wanted.

I dont know if I would wear this regularly... but I suppose that is the hollow ring style for you. From here I made the ring out of copper. I had to get my ring size and carefully measure and cut it, then bend the ends together and solder it. Turned out pretty well. 

From here I also had to do the same process for a brass ring and shaped it into the form I wanted the ring to be in, then solder it closed. Because I want to have holes in my plates, I could close the brass ring. Once I had these two, I soldered them onto my copper plate. This proved difficult (as always with soldering). Thankfully, Justine helped me solder this together by adding another touch to the bottom, increasing the heat and the solder finally melted in place, though it took a few tries. She also gave me some good tips for soldering!

Big dipper constellation from behind

I am thinking of doing some salt etching to the copper plates, because I think it looks a bit simple as it is now. I am not sure though, because I cant think of something that will go with my design. I also cant do anything else until monday when we have saw blades to work with. Hope I will have enough time to finish. 

new project

So this new project proved to be quite the task! I had lots of plans for it, and in the end I deviated a lot, but I am happy with how it turned out.

Getting started with the project is always the hardest part, but I started off by working on some jump rings and making some organic shapes. This on its own proved to be terribly difficult and tedious, mostly due to the tiny soldering precision needed. I had to re-make a lot of the bars until I was able to make a shape I was happy with. I made the chains out of brass as I liked the yellow/gold look, and I wanted the flower itself to be a stained copper. I considered painting it, but I liked the metal shades. I thought there was something very pretty about the brass yellow and the pinkish copper together that went with my piece. However, the brass chain made cleaning the solder seams extremely difficult. no matter how much i sanded away, I simply couldn't get it clean enough!! If I colored it, I think it would look a bit tacky. I have always found the rustic look a bit appealing

I had a very difficult time getting the flower together. Mostly the soldering. Always the soldering! But I am learning and the practice is helping I think. I often try to get as many tips as I can from those around, and I am improving. at least a little. I started out with a plate of copper and thinned it quite a bit to make it lighter and more flexible.

I liked bending the flower to an organic shape, it felt like sculpting, something I am more familiar with. However, in retrospect, I would have done some things in a different order. I would have soldered the inner ring, the two back coiled sticks that go into the hair, and the chains BEFORE I etched and shaped the flower. But having etched the flower before I soldered left a lovely affect of the solder bleeding into the etched grooves in the center of the flower. I with the ring in the center turned out neater though. Really frustrating. I think I took the torch to that flower at least 10 times. The advanced students were helpful in giving me some advice as I worked through my struggles, and in the end I am happy with how it turned out.

the struggle of getting good photos of shiny things... photography is legit business. Anyway, I hope to wear this when my hair grows long enough to have it in a bun! I think turned out how I intended it to,  I wanted it to be like the lovely hair japanese hair pins I saw many fancy dressed girls wore while I was in japan.