A medal worth waiting for.
Posted: February 1, 2014 Filed under: Skills, Subject., Technical | Tags: art, BAMs, bronze, Cardiff, casting, handmade, landscapes, Maker., medal, metal Leave a commentI was very excitable waking up this morning knowing that today I got to see if my bronze casts worked.
AND THEY DID!
Now its just the labouring task of working them until they are magnificent and beautiful.
First I had to cut each one off the tree. I did this using an angle grinder with an attachment which works with soft metals like bronze.
Then you have to grind down the risers which connected each medal to the tree.
As didn’t want my medals polish and shiny, because I wanted to reference the landscapes they were depicting and I didn’t want to loose any of the detail on the medal, i decided to sandblast my medals to finish them.
This is the finished outcome:
I’m so proud of the way they came out. They are exactly what I wanted them to be. And not only have I gained and homed in a lot of skills involving bronze casting and mould making in this process, I feel I have also become a better organiser and have improved my skills working with others.
Bronze pouring
Posted: January 31, 2014 Filed under: Skills, Subject. | Tags: art, bronze, Cardiff, casting, handmade, Maker., medal, skills Leave a commentToday we finally poured bronze into our shell cast moulds. Its a very exciting process but also daunting knowing that the weeks of preparation boil down to this moment.
Here are some stills from a video recording of the process:
Just waiting for them to fully cool now so that we can crack them open and start working with them tomorrow, ready to send them off to BAM’s.
From plastic to bronze…
Posted: January 29, 2014 Filed under: Skills, Subject., Technical | Tags: art, BAMs, bronze, casting, handmade, Maker., medal, process Leave a commentAlongside ‘working in the field’ I have been pushing along with my subject medal project, hopefully to get it ready in time for the BAMs competition entry.
I picked up from where I left off last term casting my recently made silicone moulds with the bronze casting wax. I then assembled two casts of each side into a wax tree, ready to be coated in silica and fired to create the shell.
I underwent the firing process yesterday where the wax is melted from the inside of the tree so a solid shell remains. The kiln is placed over a pan of water so as the wax is melted out it’s scraped away so it doesn’t catch alight. It can also then be melted down and salvaged to be used another day.
Me firing:
Now I am left with two shell casting moulds ready for bronze casting next Monday! Watch this space.
Revisiting the artist books.
Posted: January 23, 2014 Filed under: Contextual, Creative Strategies, Field. | Tags: art, Book, Drawing, handmade, illustration, libary, Maker. Leave a commentI had another hour session in the library looking at the artist books this morning. I was great to revisit to collection because 1- I was now looking at them from the concept of narrative and 2- new ones have been added to the collection!
I can see how books can be a great way to illustrate narrative as they are not only traditionally designed to do so they are also naturally sequential.
Here are some pictures of my favourites:
London wall, a great ‘photo essay’ documenting the narrative of one place.
Little museum. Also similar to London wall as it takes the form of a ‘photo essay’ but instead is documenting objects rather than place.
This next one I loved because not only was it slightly un-conventional (as many artist books are) it was also multi-sensory incorporating the smell of herbs and plants.
This next one I just loved aesthetically.
Collage workshop
Posted: January 16, 2014 Filed under: Creative Strategies, Drawing, Field., Skills | Tags: art, collage, denim, handmade, Maker., memories Leave a commentToday in my field option we had a workshop where we were asked to create collages with reference to place and memory. It reminded me of the haunting nostalgia element I looked at the other day, linking memory to the past present and future – the uncertainty of what’s to come and the ghosts of the past are what taints and haunts the nostalgic memories. It gives a melancholic feeling.
Saying this I wasn’t overly proud of my collage achievements and I think they don’t get this concept across nor do they have any great aesthetic resonance or drama. I will continue to practice with the technique and see if it works for me! Maybe It didn’t work because I felt constrained by the size of A5, or maybe because I was trying to be too conventional in my approaches. Either way these two outcomes don’t necessarily work for me.
Assessment day!
Posted: December 11, 2013 Filed under: Creative Strategies, Skills, Subject. | Tags: art, asessment, books, design, Drawing, handmade, medals, uni, Wax, writing. Leave a commentToday is our formative assessment day so I’ve cleaned my desk (finally!) and set my work out nicely.
This is what it’s turned out like:
Setting it out like this has made me realise how much (or little) I’ve done and how much time has been split between the two projects.
It also shows off my medal project as the more successful of the two. It’s stronger, more coherent and makes more sense!
Pen in the works
Posted: November 18, 2013 Filed under: Creative Strategies, Drawing, Subject., Technical | Tags: art, black, books, bronze, casting, Drawing, glass, handmade, make, pen, puddle, sculpture, self portrait. Leave a commentFinally, cut my pen off my bronze tree. It’s time to finish off the process now and shine it up and paternate it if I want. However, I don’t know if I want my pen to be ultra shiny, I think I prefer it to have elements of shine and elements of dullness. I’m going to experiment with the levels of finish on bronze and decide after I see these outcomes.
The bronze pen will be displayed over a puddle of black to look like the pen has leaked. This would ideally be placed before you approach my series of books. I think I want the puddle to be made of slumped glass so that the edges of the glass are rounded and there is an ultimate shine from the puddle. This piece of glass would become a marker for a film introducing the books as a self portrait.
Below is a photo of the pen cut off the tree ready to be finished and polish and an image of how I envisage the pen puddle combination.
Accidents happen.
Posted: November 18, 2013 Filed under: Creative Strategies, Subject. | Tags: art, cloth, dye, handmade, make, Maker., mess, puddle, red, textiles Leave a commentToday I was just experimenting with hand dying fabrics and cloths. Got a few samples out in different types and colours of fabrics to see what kind of outcomes I could expect.
As I was doing this I knocked the bottle over on the floor. Typical me being clumsy as ever.
But as I was clearing the puddle up I got a really lovey pattern created on the cloth. Now, to replicate this… As I can’t just keep creating puddles of dye on the floor.
Maker:Tess 