Production function

Art Jewelry Magazine had an article this month focusing on production strategies and methods. How appropriate! The article is titled, Making multiples by Michael David Sturlin.  I thought an interesting point that they mentioned was to be careful not too overproduce. The article stated, "you want to make enough so that your productive but not so many that it becomes tedious." Once you lose your enthusiasm, you lose some of the beauty your work can posses. "If your bored, the quality of your work will slip." Motivation is key!

The production processes that the article talked about were making a template, blanking dies, Hydraulic press and conforming dies. And of course Casting.

Stone Setting in wax

Production Piece ideas

I want to carve something in wax, cast it, then rubber mold it to make multiples. Here are some sketches, I was inspired by the overall shape of moose antlers and how they resemble the movement of water. I want to merge the two for the design below, which will possibly have a stone set in it.

Reflections on Chasing and Repousee

I really like the wide variety of outcomes you can get with this technique. It is versatile and can be used to form and texture metal with few constraint. What I dislike about the process is the fact that you have to keep removing the piece from the pitch to anneal it. The pitch sticks to the piece and is a pain to burn off. I would like to experiment with making tools with creative ends for texture stamping. Now that I know this technique, I will begin to start thinking what I can design with it. Such as setting a stone by moving the metal around the stone to hold it in place.

The finished Product

I apologize, I have not taken a photo of it yet

Progress

Pictures coming soon
Side note: This is an awesome book, strongly recommended. Our library doesn't have it but you can interlibrary loan it.

Round Two!

Got it all lined

Burning the pitch off and annealing 

New tiny tools :)

Here are my new tools:

I have a triangle tool! Cant wait to use it!

Round one!

I adjusted the size of my sketch to about 3 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. When I started my piece, i discovered that my tools are waaaay to large for my desired end product. The biggest problem was my lining tool. its not fine enough. I am going to buy smaller round steel and make small tools to work with. Here is my experimentation in preparation for my piece:

realized that my design needed to be flipped so that it goes the direction i want it to. So above is reversed of what the final will look like.

So far i think i really like this process. It has a lot of possibilities which i like. Eventually i want to be able to set a stone with chasing a repousee. I saw some diagrams in a book on chasing and repousee that set a stone and it looks super awesome!

Sketches

The bottom drawing is the one i am leaning toward.

The finished piece will be a hair clip

Tools for Chasing and Repousee

I've finished my tools! Here they are:

Movement through Water

Definitely love the theme of water and the movement that is present in its form. When i was coming up with ideas, I found I was more interested in the organic shapes than I am in geometric ones so I wanted a theme that allows me to explore more organic forms. I also keep finding myself using animals as a starting point for designs, I'm not sure how to combine the two or if water is a sufficient theme. I have some pictures I took of running water, they will be up soon.