Darkish morning and bits of beauty

 

It is official - it was darkish this morning when we rose - the village lights were still on as you can see from then photo above. But by the time I got to walk the morning light  was creeping in so I could see many bits of beauty.

Though we are into autumn it has still been warm enough for plants to think there is still time to bloom - including orchids in G's orchid house.

I always hope that sharing the colour in our neighbourhood might bring a little joy to those folk who are caught in an ongoing winter.

Progressing sails and hulls; and testing new fixing arrangement

 

As I have said in an earlier blog post doing multiples in metal can be tedious and time consuming. I am making process with the sails - a stack of 100 cut and ground blanks above.

I have started to drill holes in the blanks for the mast to go through - see below. I'm doing this before I anneal and form (hammer) the sails.

I also wanted to test a new more stable but detachable way of fixing the boats to mesh - photos below. As you can see the new design clips around one strand of mesh and over the adjacent strand.

Because I got bored and my arm got tired  with drilling holes for masts I made a start on folding the metal for the hulls. I have worked out that I can use a groove in my aluminium vase jaws to bend the blanks in half - saves a lot of hammering on the anvil.

The copper patina on some of the hull blanks is gorgeous.

Done and off to the framers

 

As you can see from the photo above I have completed the 5 small assemblages made from a few collections of bits. 

A few photos of the process follow - stitching the metal collection on to Khadi paper (300gsm) with copper wire; and attaching the pencils with double sided art tape.

A few photos of completed metal pieces.

The pieces are now with James Frames to mount them on a dark green-grey mount board. 

Touched by the sun

 

One of the positives of the changes in the season (from summer to autumn) is that the mornings appear darker and the sun is rising just a bit later. It means when I go for a walk the angle of the sun appears to be a bit lower and catching flowers etc at a different angle. Now that might be all scientifically wrong; but I was fascinated by the sunlit blossoms, birds and webs this morning.  I particularly liked the web on a crucifix orchid plant above - you can see the wee spider hiding; and the orange blossoms below.

Of course there were many more - some shared below.

Birds catching  the early light.

The sun was not filtering into G's orchid house; but there was beauty to behold.

Autumn mornings and autumn light appear softer and a delight.

The start of 100 sails

 

I have made the start on making 100 boat hulls by cutting up the blanks. Over the weekend I turned my mind and hand to cutting the flat sail shapes-blanks. I intend to hammer the flat metal to create shapes like the one above - curved as though there is a wind in the sails.

Using a template I marked up the shapes - quite frugal with the metal as I was able to use the angles to mark up the shapes from two directions to save cuts and metal.

The metal was cut on my bench mounted gulliuotine.

The final result was 105 pieces of metal in the photos below.

I have started to grind the rough edges off the cut metal before annealing the metal and hammering it into the sail form - see below.

One of the downsides of making multiples is that there is not a lot to show for effort as one is carrying out each step. The reward of course will be the 100 boats at the end when sails and hulls are connected via the mast.

Using what we have

 

As part of our annual clean up and the garage sale, Fiona and agreed that we would use bits and pieces of art supplies and collections before we buy anything new.

As you can see from the photos above and below I had some small containers with hand made convict nails, pencils left by builders at our former house and armament bits from Flanders Fields from the 1914-18 war. I will turn these into small assemblages that can be wall mounted.

I also found my stencils and left over posters and bits and pieces from the making of my It Won't' Dismantle Itself patriarchy artists' book - as you can see from the photos. I have decided that I will use these bits to make a one off artists' book.

More will be revealed as the pieces are made.