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.

Leaves, patina and rust

 

What is not to celebrate about this smaller sculptural piece (about 60cm wide X 55cm high) - hand formed recycled copper leaves, copper patina and rust on half of an old pulley wheel. See fully assembled piece below with a hard wood base.

The leaves are riveted to the mild steel stalks or stems with copper rivets - yes the stems will rust in the outdoors.

Couple of other process photos on the workbench.

And a photo at the front door in blazing sunlight.

A lovely addition to the Bending Series.

The beauty of dark light, leaves and succulents

 

We are definitely on the road to winter - the mornings are dark when we rise to exercise as you can see from the photo above and below.

I almost did not walk outdoors this morning as it was threatening to rain - I'm glad I did as the freshness of new leaves showed that even with approaching winter there can be much life and beauty.

I enjoyed seeing healthy succulents our retaining wall; and the contrast between fallen leaves and healthy succulents.

Fragments of beauty in the darkness help to remind me of hope.

Small metal boats and patinated leaves

 Creativity has taken a couple of forms over the weekend - finishing some small metal boats; and making a couple of stashes of larger copper leaves.

The finished boats are in the opening photo; and a couple of process photos below.

I'm making two sets of copper leaves: one set from cleaner meta; and one set from heavy and brown patinated metal from an old copper washing boiler. Photo of the ones from the cleaner metal is below - patinated and ready for final grind before going into DEP shop.

 on stalksThe second set will become a Bending sculptural piece - with 15 leaves. Process photos follow.

Mixed bag of a weekend but good outcomes. 

A whole lot of wee watercolours

 

My weekly watercolour classes and efforts continue - obviously with mixed success. Still I'm learning to develop my style and I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I am quite happy with the latest wee shed above 

is  another shed from at Talmine Beach. The shed below is one at Sandside Harbour.

The boat below was one that was dropped off at Strathnaver Museum carpark.

A few process photos follow.

I wasn't as happy with the watercolour of the shed and boat at the bottom of Armadale cove - the photo was taken from the top of the cove so the perspective is all a bit wonky. Not a good photo of the watercolour - bit bluish - but it gives you an idea go the wonky perspective.

Last photo is of the Talmine Beach shed with paper texture background removed - this process also removes some of the detail of the watercolour.

I often have two to three watercolours on the go simultaneously to allow different washes etc to dry between coats.

Simple beauty

 

We are having some sunny bluesky days that enable the simple beauty of nature shine - including fallen leaves (above) and the detail of stag horns (below).

Following are some other fragments from the week.

Sun and blue sky after many days of rain are so uplifting.