November. Already. ...

Why does there have to be dates on this thing? To show how lame I am at staying on task...

Very , very busy year.  I have spent most of my free time working for and doing programs for SOAR-Saving Our Avian Resources.  www.soarraptors.org.  It is a passion and if I didn't have to have a real job, SOAR would be my real job and I would have more time for metalsmithing.

But I really enjoy my craft. It is fun. I like to challenge myself. I like the tools and the possibilities. However, I struggle with design.  I think if I took more time drawing, sketching, studying lines and shapes, I would be happier with my results.  Where do you like to look for creativity? for inspiration?

I was able to purchase a new camera and was also blessed with a trip to Glacier and Canada with the hubby this summer. Photography is another place to look for inspiration and ideas.  I like to look at photos, but zoom in on a small portion, to see the individual lines and not the whole picture. This helps get my brain to stop insisting that everything must be of a realistic or photographic quality. It stretches my brain.

Cropped

The cropped photo is still really recognizable but maybe this pattern would look good surrounding a cabochon or incorporated in a repetitive design in a bracelet or as texture on a bowl.

Original photo

Anything to get me to not be so "normal" and "regular" in my designs.

Fold formed copper, flame "painted" with sterling silver

This is as close to abstract as I have gotten recently.   I usually have to have pieces very symetrical and I am trying to not do that...

and then... sometimes you just gotta make stuff so you are making stuff. So you are using your tools and sawing, and playing with fire, especially after going such long stretches this year without even walking into my studio.

Recycled aluminum wire...I added some little red beads to one...Have you ever worked with aluminum? What should I do with it?

copper...Christmas ornament? Gift tag?...?

Time to get back in to my studio and make some more items. Let's crank out some earrings and use up some stones!

I'm Not Dead! I think I'll Go For A Walk!

Not even going to explain why I can't regularly post. Just going to move on!

OK Fun with copper tubing.  Had a lot of fun smashing and foldforming copper tubing to make some copper bracelets.

The blue patina on the above copper bracelet was done quickly and rather well with ammonia and table salt.   See my post about patina's but this was done just a bit different. Instead of painting ammonia on the bracelet I simply soaked a rag in ammonia. Got the copper wet with the ammonia and sprinkled salt. Closed the lid on the tupperware and wala! The next day pretty blue.   This worked out sweet.

With the same tubing used to make the bracelets above I made the earrings pictured below. This copper tubing is 6mm or about 1/4 inch in diameter.   I flame painted the tubing and added the turqoise and handmade sterling sliver rondelles. To make the silver rondelles I melted scrap silver, smashed the lumps, drilled holes and sanded. Very fun.  The head pin is balled up ss wire.

We came across a great and easy project here and did a class at The Workspace this last summer. We had fun and had great success! See pictures below. Again these were made with copper tubing.  This tubing was smaller than above, it is 3mm or about 1/8 inch. The 20gauge sterling silver ear wires are simply held in the earrings just with the smashed tubing. Notice how the students flattened the wire in both planes. The did an EXCELLENT job with texture, design and patina.

Drop in Copper Bangle Bracelets Class is next week.  Check out the link and come smash out some art!

Stringing Caught My Eye, Wirework Sucked Me In

Time keeps slipping past me! Classes begin this week at The Workspace! I so enjoy teaching there and am ready to play and explore.  Resin class is this week and Wirework is in March. Both are full. I am looking forward to the wirework class as that is what really got me interested in tools and metalworking.

A look back at one of my earliest samples of work.  Strung bracelets and an early wirework piece

I have been playing with jewelry for over ten years. I can't remember when I first began but I think one of those little project books caught my eye at the local fabric/craft store. Stringing is fun and I soon became obsessed with collecting natural - no dyes etc - gemstones. That is where I came up with the name "Silver Leaf". Silver leaf is a name of a type of jasper. Jasper is one of my favorite stones. But stringing led to looking at magazines and Step by Step Wire caught my attention with Connie Fox's work on the cover.  Her wirework was stunning and fun and I learned about base metals, silver plate and sterling.  Oh and tools! First there were the pliers.  I started out with cheap pliers. Then I could see the marks from the pliers on my wire. That is no good!! I worked on tight even coils, neat spirals and filed all ends of every wire so there would be no discomfort against the skin or snagging of sweaters. But tool marks on the wire was not cool so I bought some of that tool dip, to coat the pliers and that helped. But what helped the most was practice and the right touch and some new, more expensive pliers :) Then files and cutters and HAMMERS! weee!  So much learning too! The glossary grows - Gauge of metal, types of metal, hardness of metal, more tools and how to use them.  And since Connie Fox doesn't seem to leave California, my best bud and I drove up to Minnesota for a really fun weekend taking a class from Sharilyn Miller. She has her own fun style and I learned how to go crazy on a bead.

Crazy fun wire work on jasper and turquoise!

Have I mentioned polishing? There are so many ways to polish. You can buy stuff in a bottle, rub with a special polishing cloth, use finer and finer grits of sand paper, even hit metal with a polished hammer to planish the metal. But my favorite method is tumbling with steel shot. All of this lead to even more learning and growth and true metalsmithing. Cold joining, soldering, foldforming, ...so much fun! And still there is so much to learn.  And with classes coming up, I will learn more, hopefully my students will too. Call The Workspace at 515-294-0970.

Check out Connie Fox -although she has also "graduated" to metal work, her site is educational and beautiful. I hope to add more in depth education to this blog. But time flies!!

For wirework I also recommend Sharily Miller's book "Bead on a Wire".

Beginning Metals!

I love teaching Beginning Metals at the ISU Workspace and I am so pleased with every group! This last group really worked on different techniques and I would like to show them off here with some pictures.

The last night of class and experimentation in foldforming also invloved air chasing and sewing!  I love how organic this piece looks. It has great line and color, I think it is fabulous!

This student mastered sawing and did lots of experiementation with texture.  The ring is cut from the textured copper in the back and soldered. The "J" is riveted.

Foldforming was a hit the last night. This piece is foldformed and riveted and patina is flame.

This piece was foldformed and then the student experimented with sinking and raising and considering we didn't have a nice depression in wood to work on, she did very well. Again, flame is a favorite patina.

Exploring Nature for Inspiration and Rejuvenation

Rarely taking vacations can really make you cherish every moment of your trip.  Our family took a real -longer than a weekend - vacation - the first in 11 years this summer. We drove to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park via South Dakota and some dinosaurs and hot springs. It was wonderful. Everyone got along and it was precious time spent together as a family. Our children are getting to the age where we will soon be empty nesters so it was a last chance for us to travel together.

We hiked and explored and kept a tally of the wildlife we saw, which included TWO black bears. But as we traveled I tried to pay attention to the colors, and flora, and fauna. The landscapes and horizons. Views near and far can give ideas for projects. I took my sketch book along and also took over 2000 pictures.  I miss kodachrome but digital pictures sure save me money!!!

Flowers are a common inspiration for many and one of my favorite inspirations.

The shapes of flower petals and leaves constantly add to inspiration. One of my favorite artists is Monet who was an impressionist so his paintings used light, texture and shape but not in high detail. But when I draw for myself I want to have realistic images. Often wondered if I should have tried my hand at bio-illustration. So now when I work in metal, I am finding I want to do the same thing and obtain a realism in my shapes.

 

I am trying to challenge myself to become more abstract and stretch my creativity into an area I am not comfortable.  But still, nature is my base.

Simply being in this place is inspiring on many levels, not just artistically.

Get outside. 

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle!

The Science of Work Hardening and Annealing

I had the wonderful opportunity a couple weeks ago to work with Iowa State University Program for Women in Science and Engineering K-12 Outreach Program. They have several opportunities throughout the year for young girls to experience activities that create an interest in science, technology, engineering and math. So they contacted the ISU Memorial Union Workspace where I teach metalsmithing classes and we developed an activity so they could make something and learn something and hopefully even gain some self confidence!

I chose Foldformed Copper Bangles as their project. They turned out great!

These are samples I created for the class

Each of the 54 participants (ages 8-14 in 4 groups) received a 6x1 inch strip of 26 gauge copper. I used 26 gauge because I wanted to be sure that the youngest girls could be successful hammering and unfolding their bangles.  It worked great and if we did it again I think we will use 24 gauge, although 26 is a bit cheaper.

Now the Science

Copper is an element found on the Periodic Table of Elements.  It is a noble metal. It is made up of atoms that line up in a regular pattern that repeats, forming a crystalline structure.  Copper can be soft and it can be hard. Metals can be made stronger by deforming the crystalline structure of the molecules. This is what happens when you hit copper with your hammer. You change the molecular structure of the copper and make it hard. --Work Hardening --  To make the copper soft again, you Anneal the copper.

So as you hammer away on your beautiful copper, you notice it gets stiffer, harder to bend and the sound of your hammering will become higher pitched. The molecular arrangement of the copper has been deformed thus making the copper stronger. If you continue to hammer, the copper will become harder but also brittle. This is why paper clips are easy to break. The metal is hard, but brittle. I also learned from the ISU Engineering Students who were helping the reason why the Titanic broke into two pieces. Apparently the metal that formed the ship was too hard and brittle and that is why the ship broke in two and sunk. wow.

I later watched a documentary on the Titanic and not only was the metal too brittle but the rivets of the Titanic were made of a weaker iron in the front and rear of the ship. When the ship hit the iceberg with the bow, the rivets did not hold and six seams came apart on the ship. The weakness came because there was a larger amount of slag in the iron that made up the rivets. Slag weakens the metal and in tests, metal with a higher amount of slag will not stretch as far and is more brittle than metal with less slag. I also watched a NOVA documentary about the making of viking swords. It was very interesting and helped me to understand more about work hardening and annealing and what happens at the molecular level of the metal. A sword is made of steel and worked by a blacksmith but educating yourself on a variety of art forms only adds to your own knowledge. Also the blacksmith was from nearby Wisconsin and I am now a fan. His knowledge and workmanship was remarkable. Here is a link to the NOVA episode: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html

Annealing is the process of heating your copper up which helps the copper molecules get back into their nice, tidy, crystalline structure and like magic it is soft again.  I don't know about you but this blows my mind.  I love how you can work with copper over and over and over again and as long as you are careful while annealing you can work with it indefinitely.

When you anneal the copper, turn off your lamp that you use in your torch area. Dim light helps you see the color change of the copper, and that tells you the temperature of the copper. Heat your copper to a dull red. Keep it at a dull red for 10-15 seconds. To do this, keep moving your torch around and over your piece. I have to move the flame off the piece so I can see the color of the metal. You will see that the copper will first start to turn dark and then the dull red. When you move the flame away the dull red will quickly disappear as the metal instantly starts to cool. Immediately put your flame to the metal again, making passes over the metal and watching the color. Then turn off your torch and quench your piece.  Be careful though because dull red can quickly turn to bright red and that is too hot.

If you heat your copper to bright red you risk making your copper very hard -the complete opposite of annealing! So watch the color change very closely. Practice on scrap and have fun!

Trying Out Patinas

Turning Copper Green and Blue

Patina is what happens to copper and silver and other metals over time. The color of the metal changes because of the chemical reactions between the metal and the environment.  It takes many years for copper to turn green, especially where I am from in Iowa. I discovered this a few years ago when I made a rain chain for my mother-in-law and the copper turned very dark and even black in some places.  Eventually it will get some green but now I know how to speed up the process!

I have had a lot of fun learning about how to speed up patinas on copper. I have to give thanks to all the free information on the internet and in my books and hopefully this information will help you too.   After researching many recipes, I found some that I thought I could actually try with stuff I had in the house. I also wanted to work with ingredients that were not toxic and I really like the idea of creating the recipe myself as opposed to buying a jar of something pre-made. Please share what you have tried and let me know your results.

Ammonia, vinegar and salt and surprisingly saw dust are the ingredients used in different combinations to get copper to turn green or blue/green.  So far, they all turned out great, but I can generally scratch off the green with my fingernail so all material will probably need to be coated with a lacquer.

Buried Patina:
*I apologize that I can not find the actual web site that I found this information from, however I have found many others with slight variations of the bury method.  I will keep looking because I want to link to the site so the proper person gets credit. Even though she didn't invent the method but like me was just passing the information along in her blog.

 If you want a textured patina try easy, kitchen friendly Buried Patina For Blue color on copper: Add 1 part Vinegar to 4 parts Ammonia and saturate hardwood sawdust until media clumps together in a sandwich size zip-lock baggie filled with saw dust. Bury metal in media and seal the bag. Place in a warm spot and check each day to see if the color appears and is to your liking. When the color is right for you, let the piece dry out before using or sealing.  The "texture" comes from where the saturated sawdust comes in contact with the copper.

For Green color on copper: Add 1 part Vinegar to 3 parts Ammonia and saturate until media clumps together in a sandwich size zip-lock baggie filled sawdust or rolling tobacco. Bury metal in media and seal the bag. Place in a warm spot and check each day to see if the color appears and is to your liking.

For Bright turquoise color on copper:  Add 1 cup ammonia, 1 cup rock salt, ½ cup tap water to cotton squares until media clumps together and bury metal, seal bag, place in warm area, check each day

If you want a transparent patina to be able to see textures or etching try Liver of Sulphur (LOS) or other transparent patinas.Some of the above info came from books by Jinks McGrath

Painting vinegar/salt and ammonia/salt on copper works too. I simply painted the liquid on the copper, let it dry and reapplied. I did this at least three times and came up with some great results.

I was able to remove some of the patina with my fingernail. You can resolve this by working with  this method longer and making more applications and then seal the copper with lacquer or a fixative.

Ammonia with salt also gave a similar shade of green. This was really fun!