Rustnstuff: Antler

Showing posts with label Antler. Show all posts

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Mainly about gravel - but also antler and horn

This year Fiona and I decided that finally we would tackle the bare area under the house. It has always been a bit of an eye saw. So we decided to have slats install;and gravel the area in front of them. On Thursday we finished painting the slat so then it was over to me to gravel.

I ordered 3 cubic meters of drainage gravel - good for holding the soil in place and surprising weeds. Over the weekend I did three sessions of shovelling, hauling and spreading grave. It has to be done by hauling buckets of gravel. I used about one cubic meter - about 150-170 buckets. Looking good so far - hope to be finished by next weekend.

I did set aside a couple of hours to finish the antler earrings and pendants; and also finished off a couple of black buffalo horn pendants.

Quite a few pendants on the shelf in the display case.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Fragments of time and antler

The work on the block in January continues; and time for art is snatched here and there. Today I got a couple of hours to progress the antler jewellery I have been working on. I managed to finish a couple of pair of organic twig like antler earrings. after spending time grinding and polishing the pieces.

A shelf in one of my display cabinets has an interesting range of earrings I think.

I am experimenting with the earrings and pendants that are made from the antler cross sections. The inner part of the antler is made up of a brown lattice of bonelike substance. I wanted to see if it was possible to fill the lattice with glass resin and in the case of one pendant and the pair of earrings also colour the lattice with permanent marker ink.

The glass resin takes about 24 hours to fully cure so I might get to finish the pendants and earrings over the weekend

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Restoration and preparation

As part of the January maintenance program I decided to put an extra layer on the book wall. We had quite a few books available for the job after I disassembled a book bench seat on the terraces and replaced it with a large timber bench. Fiona also finally agreed to let me use the stack of books outside the door at the shed-studio.

I found it interesting that the prolonged dry weather had resulted in the books shrinking. You can see from the first photo that the shrinkage has been about 5cm or one encyclopaedia in thickness. It took about 4-5 hours to do the restoration. The wall looks good again.

Whilst in Scotland I picked up a small section of stag antler. I wanted to see how it would work from a jewellery perspective. I cut the antler with a twisted blade - stronger and better cutting action. for bone and horn. I don't use power tools for cutting bone or horn or antler - too much dust and fumes. Still the work was done with a good mask on; and clean up of dust immediately after the cutting.

The antler proved to be quite dense and hard. I think I have cut enough to create two pendants and three pair of earrings - we will see. Took about 1.5 hours to saw these pieces.