Random fragments from away and home

 

WE are making the transition from our Maleny home to our Armadale (cottage) home. Sharing a few fragments Armadale (late 2022).

And a few fragments from Maleny (2023).

We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to experience two gorgeous places.

Finishing metal cottages and boat hull form

 

Before travelling to Scotland I finished grinding and polishing 7 small melted metal (pewter) cottages that were hand formed in a graphite mould I carved. The cottages are about 3.5cm long, 2.4cm high and 2.1cm wide. I love how quite a few of the cottages ended up with a slight rainbow colouring as you can see in the photo above and below.

I also finished grinding and polishing a pewter boat hull form. I just love the rainbow colours on both the top and underside of the hull form.

I still experiment with adding other metals to the pewter to see what effect I get - creative fun - most often not able to replicate consistently.

Not sure of the name

 

I'm making an artists' book using left over pages, over prints and the stencils used in the creation of my book IT WONT'T DISMANTLE ITSELF - patriarchy that is - 3 copies - one original and two artist's proofs. That book is A3 in size. The back and front covers of the new book will feature over prints of the words avenges and uninvited hands as you can see from the opening photo. This book will be A4 in size; and will be unique.

I have made a small mockup of the book to ensure that each opening will feature a stencil used for embossing and spraying for the pages of the original book - see below.

The stencils are now covered in the black spray paint. You can see some of the progress photos following. The A3 pages are being cut down to A4 size.

The last page of the book is to feature the stencil that was used to emboss the cover of the original book - but after a discussion Fiona and I thought it needed a black border to help it to stand out. The making of and attaching the black border all went according to plan until I realised I had attached it to the wrong side of the stencil - very frustrating. You can see from the photos below it was not easy to remove the black paper frame - very good quality double sided tape.

But it ended well as you can see from the photo below.

I will probably have to wait until I return from Scotland to complete the book. I'm still not sure what to call the book - suggestions are welcome.

Fragments from a few walks before leaving home

 

This blog post celebrates some of  the birds and blossoms in our neighbourhood. They make my walks a joy.

Blossoms....

Birds ....

Orchid blossoms ...

I hope they bring a bit of joy and hope to you as well.

Twenty boat forms for Scotland

 

I have been accepted to hold a solo exhibition in a small new exhibition space in the Scottish highlands towards the end of this year. One of the pieces will have 100 small boats. I have made the sails and hulls for 20 boats that I will take to Scotland this trip to see if it is possible to get a local welder to tack weld the sails to the mast and hulls.

The opening photo shows two prototype boats with the sails set in two different directions. Below are some photos of the process of making the 20 boat forms.

I will post some photos of the boats welded in Scotland if that works.

Go gently hearts

 

One of Fiona and my sayings for 2023 is "go gently" - encouraging ourselves and others to be kind to ourselves, kind to our minds and move through the world more slowly, quietly without judging ourselves too much.

I made probably about 15-20 metal metal hearts with "go gently" stamped on the back. These have been gifted to folk over the last few months.

I decided that I would make another stash to have in reserve as give aways particularly when we return home from Scotland.

I tend to do a metal (pewter) melt when I'm in the workshop doing other tasks. Each time I get to pour about 4-5 hearts of two sizes. 

By adding a few brass offcuts to the mix I fluke it sometimes and get a pour that has a gold sheen and even a purple dot where the pour is finished. This blog post just shares some images from a few of those pours.

Whilst I have quite a few hearts in the tool box draw I will make s few more over the next week.

The hearts will get stamped with "go gently" when I return from Scotland.