A Ghostly forrest?

Well that's how I see it......

These are actually the results of my last casting class at Fremantle Arts Centre. I was only able to stay at class half an hour before I had to dash to an unavoidable commitment, so luckily my friends Jane & Lotta stepped in and melted my silver and poured the castings I'd prepared the week earlier...Thanks girls :)

The "snow" on my trees is the remains of the investment (heat proof plaster) that forms the moulds. As Jane put it "their love for me did not extend to cleaning up my castings" Ha Ha - they only wanted to do the fun bits, like playing with fire and molten metal!

Tempting as it is to keep these ghostly little trees as they are, they are destined to become "branch necklaces" similar to the one I posted last week. Pin It

Branching out......

In casting class I've had the most success with my twigs that I turned into little bird necklaces.

Last week instead of the single twig, I cast a twig with multiple little branches. I was really happy with how it turned out and I've made it into another necklace. I've attached it to a long chain which just slips over my head with no clasp. I've resisted the temptation to add a bird or other forest creatures -I did contemplate a squirrel, but decided the tree shape was impressive enough on its own.
Soldering the rings on for the chain was a pain that's taken the best part of the morning and I did a bit of a dodgy job on it, but undeterred I'm going to try casting another "tree" at next week's class and incorporate the jump rings into the casting. Hopefully that will work better :)

I don't always cast twigs though. I've also got a little aeroplane and a dinosaur head which turned out well enough to make into something......watch this space.........

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Productive Few Days

It's been pretty hot and humid here but I did manage to drag myself out into the shed and do some soldering. I finished another one of the cast twigs that I made at my casting class a few weeks back. I made it into another necklace but this time I've laid it out vertically instead of horizontally like my first twig necklace.



Also, played with a heavy gauge wire to make these swirl earrings. No soldering involved - just forming, hammering & polishing.



I have to be a little considerate these days with my hammering. Our house is surrounded on 3 sides by houses that have babies. I shut my self in the spare room and close the doors, hoping it's not too loud for the neighbours! I haven't had any complaints so far! Pin It

Possibilities in Metal

Over the last 2 Sundays I've attended the "Possibilities in Metal Casting" Workshop at The Fremantle Arts Centre
It was lots of fun, I went with my talented friends Lotta & Jane and the teacher was renowned Local Artist Sarah Elson. We enjoyed it so much we have signed up for Sarah's class for Term one to explore some more of the possibilities!
We cast all sorts of things, I tried a wax model of a lego brick, some twigs, a resin mini plane (that Jane made a mould of from a little toy plane I had lying around).

My most succesful casts were the twigs which I cast in Sterling Silver, the other things require quite a bit of clean up so I'll save them for another time. This morning I spent some time polishing up one of the silver twigs and soldering the jumprings on - I had sawn out the little sterling silver bird earlier in the week so he got soldered on too.

It's not really an original idea as I've seen lots of similar sorts of things done with cast twigs, I imagine because the obvious thing to do is to pop a bird on a branch! The beauty is of course, that no two twigs are alike. Anyway, I'm very happy to have a cute necklace to wear as a result of the course.

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