Time for more shot glasses...

Whenever I have an upcoming Art and Craft show I always go into overdrive thinking about what I want make - ideas flood into my head and I can't help but overwork myself leading up to the show. This is the case leading up to QWAC. I finished off the rings in my last post and moved onto creating some new earring designs. I decided since I wanted to create quite a few pieces that I had never made before I would first make them in copper. You can see in the first photo the wonky ring shapes that I soldered from strips of sheet copper. Many steps later... is the almost finished product (all they need are my handmade earwires attached). Complete with a patina to give a Grey-black colour to the copper and some Resin. At the last moment while pouring the resin I thought to myself "I like polka dots." That's right folks, that is one of many deep thoughts I am thinking while I am busy creating. Since I have been working a lot with Resin I am left with a bunch of containers that are filled with layers of leftovers. I am quite fond of using small plastic shot glasses that I purchased at the Dollar store, I only have a couple that are unused left so I have to remember to pick some more up. I haven't yet decided what I would like to make with my layered resin cups, but there are a few ideas in the back of my mind. Feel free to comment on what you think I should make with them. I hope to make at least one more post before QWAC and then afterwards some fun pics from the show.

Behold the Rings

I am following up on my promise to post the finished rings. I just had to post them pictured on my hand... you might notice a few scratches. I have been trying to pass them off as the mark of my profession. In other words being a bad-ass goldsmith means you don't have nice enough looking hands to be wearing your creations. I wish I could claim them as such, but they are just the evidence of the fact that I have a cat. Enjoy the finished pieces!

Bouncing around

Lately I have been bouncing around projects. In anticipation of my fourth year participating in the Queen West Art Crawl and my studio group show I have been working on several pieces at once. The shield piece in my last post is one of five pieces that I plan on making for the show and I have been giddy over some new resin pieces that I have been experimenting with. Lately I have been attempting to take some process shots of my work. However since I am more on top of actually creating the pieces I don't always check the pictures I've taken before moving in between steps. I have ended up with blurry unusable shots that I can't retake (Oops). I have been having fun adding coloured ball chain and tiny pearl loops off the sides of my new resin pieces (that are similar to the piece in my heading). you can take a look at a couple process shots of a few rings that I have made. After I pour the resin I always place my little sign over the top to make sure that no dust or debris gets into the resin and more importantly that no one touches my work while it is still drying. I have to admit though (and everyone in my shared studio already knows this) I use the sign because I would be the first person to touch anything anyone else leaves out. And it's always good for a laugh.
I will be updating with more resin pieces, they have been a lot of fun to make!

Seeing Red

I was just about to make this post and wanted to create a link to another blog I did a while back on the Jewel Envy site and noticed the date on that post. Jewel Envy, the studio that I work from is planning a group show centered around the theme "Red." Plans and the creation of the pieces have been going on for months and by backtracking I realized that I came up with the idea for my pieces four months ago. Since then I have been over producing smaller pieces of work along my theme, but not finishing the "show pieces" - the ones that will definitely be a part of the show, but still are lying in various pieces in my tool cabinet. I finally did finish one last Friday since it was a deadline for pictures for the upcoming show. A large part of my slacking off had little to do with procrastination and a whole lot to do with my worrying about the outcome of the pieces. This is my problem: sometimes when I am about to finish a piece and I am doubtful that I will able to fully translate what I originally had in my mind when I first came up with the idea I let it fall by the wayside instead of completing it. The outcome relied heavily on the way in which I riveted the pieces together since I was combining metal with leather and I have not always been happy with the way I have riveted in the past. Thank goodness for the deadline last Friday because I was able to get down to work, stop worrying and do some bad-ass awesome riveting. I present you with my first completed "Red" piece.

Zombie Head

I am really excited for this - my first solo blog post - because I recently finished an exciting custom piece for a customer that is anything but ordinary. When Lauren stumbled across the studio website for Jewel Envy and requested a zombie head as a gift for her boyfriend I jumped at the chance to work on it. At first I considered carving it out of wax, but after thinking on it I decided that I could do a better job of it by first making it using Sculpy. Trading a subtractive method of making it for an additive method of creating the piece - an easier process when you are trying to make a zombie head. After finishing it off I then made a mold of it so that I could inject the mold with wax and use the lost wax process to cast the piece myself. I was excited after quenching it and pulling it out of the flask that it worked. I am always nervous about a casting not working properly, mostly unfounded nerves but I can't help myself. It was fun polishing it off and adding a patina to the surface to give it a darker look and bring out his features. I am pleased with the results and after sending the piece off to the customer and getting such a rave review of the finished piece I was even happier. I feel so fortunate to have gotten the chance to make such a unique custom pendant, it's not something I get the chance to make every week!