Mostly about preparation

©2016 Barry Smith - Fire coloured copper strips - blanks for larger leaf forms

Over the last couple of days I have been starting-progressing 4 creative tasks: a few inspirational silverplated leaves; an Artisan Lamp from a sewing machine; a commission - a set of my bending leaf forms; and a few small bowl forms.

I was doing the silver-plated leaves as I wanted to take one to a wedding tomorrow - but why not make 3 when you can.

©2016 Barry Smith -  Strips for inspirational leaf forms

©2016 Barry Smith - Three inspirational leaves - 16cm long

I have had a rusted up sewing machine sitting in the garage-studio for months. I had to keep moving it around when I was trying to access other stuff including our coffee cherry pulping machine which we started using again this week. I want to make a lamp out of some of the parts for the friend who gave it to me.

©2016 Barry Smith -  One rusted sewing machine

©2016 Barry Smith -  Useful parts from the sewing machine

©2016 Barry Smith - The two sections that will form the base for the Artisan Lamp - cut and cleaned a bit

For the commission of bending leaf forms I need quite a bit of recycled copper sheet so I decided to pull the copper fire hood apart and use some of the metal. It was a quite a big job - removing rivets, bolts  etc- but it has delivered quite a lot of sheet metal.

©2016 Barry Smith - One large fire hood - fire coloured

©2016 Barry Smith - Fire hood metal unfurled

©2016 Barry Smith - Cutting copper strips - strips of fire colour - sad I know - I will be preserving some

©2016 Barry Smith - Strips of fire coloured copper

©2016 Barry Smith - Twenty five copper leaf blanks - 20cm long and 5 cm wide

I also cut out circles of flat metal for the bowls - but will blog on that on Sunday.