Casting gorgeous wee cottages

 

I got time over the last couple of days to cast some wee pewter traditional cottages with chimneys   - see above; as well as finishing 10 more leaves on stalks - see below.

The cottages are cast in sand that I have pressed moulds into. There are two sizes - 3cm long X 2cm high; and 18mm long X 18mm high - hence different containers to put the sand in etc as you can see below.

I usually heat the recycled pewter metal to about 750 degrees to allow impurities to burn off and give myself plenty of time to pour. Most times a small stream of smoke appears as the hot metal burns the oil in the casting sand.

As you can see above the cottages come out with sand and soot clinging to the metal. A clean with a fine brass brush gets rid of the sand and soot. A couple more photos of the finished cottages follow.

If you look closely you can see the casting sand imprint on the metal. Every wee cottage is unique because of how the metal reacts with the sand, the temperature and how well I'm pouring the metal.

Assemblage No.2 in the charred series.

 

Fiona and I have been having a bit of fun creating small assemblages for the cottage grounds from salvaged used pine fence posts. Fiona has done an initial blog post on her assemblage; and will do more in the future. 

The work we have been doing has included charring-burning the timber of the assemblages as you can see from my opening photo and the burning photos below.

We let the charred timber cure outside before adding adding rust and stone elements.

The following photos are of the finished piece which is about 60-70cm long and 50-55cm high. The larger rusted elements are vintage worn wood plane blades that I purchased at a village market on Orkney.

The small stone on the assemblage is from Armadale fishing cove; and the rusty bit is a rusted handmade nail. Some folk think the piece looks like church steeples; but in fact it was simply a reaction to the shapes of the fence post point offcuts. 

A burning collaboration in progress

Yesterday afternoon was quite sunny and not much wind. Fiona and I were cleaning up around the back of the cottage to make space for our tattie (aka potato) sacks - another story to be told later. 

There were quite a few fence post points that I had cut off and saved when making the tree surrounds on the last trip over. The fence posts were salvaged used posts. I asked F if she would give me a hand to nail them together to make a sculptural form that I thought we could char.

My initial thought was to make a cube shape as below.

After we had nailed three sets of three together F felt that a cube would be too static and why not nail them in such a way that we could get a bit of a zig-zag going as you can see in the opening photo. Following are a few more photos of the zig-zag in progress including placing some rusty bits in place - mainly wood-lane blades purchased for $4 on Orkney. I will drill holes in the metal pieces so they can be nailed in place.

We will wait for a fine and wind free day to char the wood; and then the rusty bits will be attached. The charring (aka burning) will give the piece a unified look. We are not sure where we will place the finished piece but we are sure there will be a spot around the cottage.

Small scribed and etched cube

 

It has been a very busy weekend looking after visitors and getting parcels ready to send to Scotland. But I did need a little creative hit so I decided to make a small cube ( 62mm cube) using one of the aluminium plates with etched circles and to create a counter point I carved lines into another plate that had not been etched. Completed cube above.

I cut a 55mm wooden cube; and as you can see I have clad it in aluminium plate using solid brass nails. Some process photo follow.

And of course the cube from a couple of different angles. Each of the six faces is different.

What am I going to do with it I hear you ask - at this stage I have no idea - just created because I thought it would look grand.

Bit of diversity

 

There are times as I have said before where we jump from project to project - often because they are in different stages. The boat form above is the restart of my small open Scottish fishing boat work - more on that later.

On Wednesday I finished a job for a couple of gardeners in the village - a post on which to hang a hose tidy thingy. Put a bit of art embellishment on to it as well as making it solid and functional.

I started some more cement work today - playing with a new mould and creating some tiny cubes that will float on wire stakes - might finish those on Sunday. I made a timber jig to hold the wires steady when they were embed in the wet cement. Put some small spirals on the wire to fix them into the cement.

A long time ago I made a prototype for my Scottish fishing boat series - below.

Today I started another 10. These are upturned hulls of five of the boats I'm making. I have deliberately left the fire colour and patina on these hulls.

A full Friday really.

Display of small outdoor sculptural pieces

 

This is the first time that I have put a few small sculptural pieces on display at the Deckled Edge Press studio. The pieces nestled well into the garden beds at the front of the studio building. The native grasses and leaf mulch provided a soft backdrop. The 19cm cube with inked routed line seemed so natural in the mulch.

The set up of the trio of posts show how they would fit beautifully into any home garden.

The bending leaf forms work well in sets of 3 and 7.

And the 11cm cement cubes with rusted bits set into them can work on a entry stairway or in at the garden

I was pleased I was able to get these pieces done so they could be shown as a group.

Experimenting with cement

 

Fiona and I have been experimenting with cement. We have many ideas how we might use it in our art - as addition to outdoor pieces; as letters-words; and small sculptures.

We experimented with the letters over a month ago - but on Wednesday we decided to test some other silicone moulds we have purchased. The photo above is a faceted heart; and the photo below shows Fiona getting her hands well and truely dirty.

Following are some finished bits. The tiny house is a pencil-pen holder - very cute.

I excavated a rusted metal peace dove out of the cube of cement - releasing peace? It was bit off centre but another lesson learnt.

Today I attached the word love and a heart to a cube of timber - more lessons learnt on how to attach the cement letters to the timber.

Whilst waiting for glue to dry I mixed a small batch of cement and filled a few moulds - including the tiny house, hearts and new pebble moulds.

I love peeling the silicone back to release the cured cement. Now we know how it works we will get into a bit of production I think.