A tale of two batches of metal

 

In the future I hope to start a new line of jewellery using salvaged silver that has been melted and rolled into strips about 1-1.2mm thick.

Whilst giving Fiona a bit of a hand with a couple of her experiments I decided to melt a second batch of silver objects I had been gifted - earrings, bangle, chain etc. I was melting the metal in my electric furnace. I set the temperature at 930 degrees to see if the metal would melt at that point. See below  very hot furnace with molten metal in the graphite crucible.

I poured the metal into the metal form you can see sitting on top of the furnace to warm it up. It poured well. But when It came to cutting the metal it simple shattered as you can see from the opening photo. And when Fiona tried to put a piece through the metal roller it just turned into particles as you can see in the photo below.

I have no idea why the metal just turned to a crystaline form. It has happened to me a couple of times in the past. All I can think is that some of the silver metal objects gifted to me must have had impurities that causes the metal to change character when mixed with other salvaged metal.

Fortunately I had done a silver metal melt earlier and when I cut that metal into strips it rolled well - quite hard but able to be used in the future work. Some annealing and rolled metal photos follow. The metal strips when rolled went from 50mm to over 100mm.

It just reinforces that using salvaged metal is always a bit of a lotto as one can never be guaranteed of the quality of the material. 

I re-melted the shattered metal and turned it into stars!!!! See below - a lot of colourful impurities!!!

I'm liking a couple of these

 

I have 4 new postcard sized Scotland inspired watercolours on the go. I'm particularly like the one in the opening image and the one following. For some reason they are coming together a little better.  The opening watercolour is of a small barn near Bettyhill; whereas the following watercolours is of a disused boat shed over Tongue way. I like the patches of bright yellow-orange lichen on the barn. The soft grey weathered timber boat shed sits quietly in the landscape.

Following are some progress images. 

I hope to finish these four in the next week.

Sneaky peeky insects and other fragments

 

It makes me smile to see insects going about their business and enhancing the beauty of the flowers as you can see in the opening and following photo.

In this blog post there are other fragments from the week including: rainbow around the moon, sunrise and sunset beauty, cormorant and platypus by and in the creek and a single feather that drifted down

Rainbow around the moon

Sunrise and sunset

Cormorant and platypus 

Drifting feather

Such a variety of beauty to enhance the days.

Big achievement

 

I say big achievement - but what I really mean is that it is a big achievement for me. As you can see from the 'poetry in your pocket' booklets (What Remains, Farewelling the Light, and Flow Country ). 

Each of these A7 booklets contains 6 original photos and 4 original fragmentary poems by me. Each of the poems is a response to 4 of my photos. 

The booklets are printed on double sided matte finish 220gsm photographic paper. I have used the photographic paper to ensure the printed images are really crisp.  The paper had to be printed back to back - feeding from the back tray one sheet at a time!!! This however created a challenge. Because the paper is heavy and has a photographic finish it was almost impossible for Fiona to sew through the 4 layers of paper - and as you can see from the following image the end result was not attractive. 

The solution was to get Fiona to teach me again how to hand stitch the books. Process photos follow.

At the beginning I said I had'bound' the books - what I really meant is that each of the booklets are held closed with a band of photographic paper with a small image that repeats a key photo from the booklet. 

All in all I'm pleased with the achievement - from original photos, to original wee poems right through to the printing, cutting, sewing and binding. These will be heading to Scotland for the Pop Up Art Show.  

Many steps

 

I set out to make 5-6 pairs of silver-plated leaf earrings to take to Scotland for the Pop Up Art Show; but as you can see from the photo above I ended up making 8 pairs.

Four pairs are longer and slender  - ranging from about 4-6cm.

Four pairs are smaller and some are wider - ranging from about 2.5-3.5cm

The photo below highlights the difference size between the smallest and largest.

Following are some process photos that show some of the many steps that go into the making of a pair of leaf earrings - from cutting metal through to adding the jump-rings and earring hooks seen in the completed earrings.

Opening the leaf forms in three stages on three different tools.

The other thing about making leaf earrings is that the cutting and grinding is quite fiddlybut the outcome is worth it.

Moon, morning light and micro systems

 

The morning moon lingered in the western sky taking its time to set. 

I saw it in many settings such as through the mesh fence and tree seen above; but also in cloud, in dark sky as you can see below.

The sun had not yet risen in the east and the stars made their presence felt; but light began to seep into the sky until it glowed orange.

The recent rain has created the opportunity for fungi to flourish and to create tiny eco-systems such as those below.

We were fortunate this morning to have the sunlight slanting in through the eastern window to briefly highlight Fiona's tiny white flower arrangement.

I am grateful for the many moments and fragments of beauty.