Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Cutting and creating rust

At the moment because of the weather I am moving between indoor and outdoor art. If its raining then I'm indoors doing smaller pieces - mainly jewellery; and if it is fine I'm outdoors working on components of three larger pieces of work.

Yesterday I got a good run at cutting up rusted iron plate for my shards; a tryptic of rusted leaf-forms; and a circular pair of leaf-forms. The cutting is done with a side grinder with fibre cutting blades. Takes a bit of time and fiddling but there is a certain satisfaction in cutting the pieces out myself and by hand. Anyway I thought I'd share a few photos of the stash of cut rusted metal which is now out in the rain curing more before I get to do the assembling of the posts; and bending of the leaf forms.

To give a sense of scale - the larger leaf-form is about 1.3m long.

©2013 Barry Smith - Various shades of rust
©2013 Barry Smith - a Pair of curved rusted iron leaf-forms
©2013 Barry Smith - Rusted iron leaf forms 
©2013 Barry Smith - The different colours of rust - different ages and stages of rusting
©2013 Barry Smith - And even then there are still offcuts from the offcuts
I love it when I get to play with the rusted plate iron - the art is there before I start - nature creating gorgeous colours and patterns.

4 comments:

  1. oh, these are all so wonderful
    such beautiful colors come with age

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  2. Delicious colours, B, and will be more so after curing in the rain.

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  3. I love that yin-yang circle of leaves...

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  4. TL, C & F - thanks for checking out the rusty stuff. TL & C - the colours really are worth watching and recording - such differences. F - it will be interesting to see how those pieces cure and look when given a couple of bends. Go well. B

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Comments are welcomed - it is good to connect with fellow travellers.