Rustnstuff: Metal fish

Showing posts with label Metal fish. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2014

More fish for True Cut Gallery

I didn't get much time over the weekend for creating art; though Fiona and I immersed ourselves in art. We attended the opening of Noela's artist of the month opening on Saturday night; attended a post opening dinner with a bunch of artists; and went to Kenilworth Sunday to check out the Kenilworth art prize exhibition and other art events.

True Cut Gallery has sold a couple of my metal fish recently; so I decided to make a start on a small school of small fish. The metal for the bodies are cut from old patterned jardinieres; then hammered into shape; and ground and polished ready for head, fins and tail. Head, fins and tail are made from offcuts of silver-plated copper and EPNS. All riveted together.

As you can see I managed to finish one fish which is about 300mm long.

If time permits I will progress the rest of the school during the week.

Friday, July 18, 2014

A bit of a fishy Friday

Amidst other things I got to work on my fish installation commission today. I had started creating larger metal fish on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons - the biggest is 575mm long. Today the effort went into smaller metal fish - the smallest is 250mm long. Fiona asked what sort of fish they are - I said Barry-fish.

I make a series of components as seen below and then rivet the lot together.

So the four small fish I made today are as follows.

And a couple of shots of a small fish with a bit of body action.

The bigger fish are made from the patterned section of a very large brass jardiniere.

And the school of fish so far look like this.

I am about to finish this very windy and cold day by making a couple of pizza (one is smoked salmon of course); and having a glass of red or two - just to warm up of course.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Of fish and flags

Yesterday afternoon I finished the spiral and pearl earring; and today I was progressing three lines of work: the flag-prayer wheel I'm creating for Flags for Peace; finishing a Daily Word-leaf set that needed to have a rose on the bowl (courtesy of a tray I fortunately had set aside); and doing a prototype of a fish for a commissioned wall feature.

I have not made a fish before so it was all a bit of trial and error. I want to keep the design simple and able to be replicated in different sizes and also be unique. The fish form (stylised fish) in the photo below is made from old recycled copper, silver-plated EPNS and new copper rivets. All hand formed and hammered of course. The tail section needs refining.

The peace flag-prayer wheel will have eight curved 'vanes' to catch the wind and drive the wheel. There are eight vanes because that is what I was able to cut from an old fruit basket-tray thingy.

As you can see from the photos above I have stamped the peace words-aspirations on the curved metal vanes. I have polished the pieces but it was all getting a bit cold and dark outside so I'll assemble the bits and post on it on another day.

And this is how the spiral and pearl earrings finished up.