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The holidays and all the concurrent activities put a stop to my working on the Lion Saucer. I finally finished it yesterday. During the last class at FIT I annealed and pickled it. It was really looking nice all pink after brushing with a brass brush.

Here’s the back.

I wanted to push the animals out a little more, the little balls and fronds needed to be raised  too, so I put the saucer down on a bed of plasticine clay about 3/4 of an inch thick (20mm) that had been stuck to a piece if binder’s board so that it was movable. In this shot you may be able to see that I have been working on the smaller details pushing on the ball shapes.

Working on the plasticine allows me to take the piece off and inspect it while I’m working, something that can’t be done  if the  metal is on a bed of pitch.

I fit the cup into the saucer and saw that I had made the center a little too generous, if it had been 2-3mm I would have left it as it was but it was closer to 6 mm and I thought it might look like the saucer was for another cup. I marked the saucer’s bottom with a pair of dividers and set it onto the flat top stake to bring the edges in a little with a planishing hammer. Here it is with a new center diameter.

Once the repoussè was finished I set the saucer into my pitch bed. This shot was taken after most of the work was done. The back ground was evened out, all of the figures had their outlines sharpened by using a small screw driver shaped chasing tool and the final decorative punches were applied. I also gave the cup rest a shadow ring under the original chased border.

Here are some comparison photos of  areas of the saucer before and after chasing on the pitch. I used one of the screw driver shaped tools, I have 3 (1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm), for the outlining and to add the shadow ring.

Here’s the saucer in its natural orientation.

It’s been a hectic few weeks. I have been working on getting art into the store on Beach Street for the Juried Miniature Show scheduled to open on December 3rd. We are also starting to become a new LLC, ArtHaus NY LLC.
I showed and sold jewelry at the Wearable Art Show which was held on November 6th and am now preparing for a Thanksgiving weekend  and a Christmas show that will take place in about a weeks time.

In the mean time I have finished a few pieces of jewelry and started on the Lion Cup saucer. The first two Lion Cups have been sold to the Jewish Museum in their Celebrations Shop. The first cup was sold to a lady who wants a saucer, so everything is moving faster than it would without a time goal. Robert, who turns wooden bowls for the store made me a pitch box big enough for the saucer, here it is with the prepared disk laid into it. The disk was prepared by annealing and sinking the center  a little to make a depression for the cup. 

The design has been reworked to let the Lions prowl, meeting the bull and chasing the ram. I made stencils of the basic shape to help me get the design onto the border as I designed it.  You’ll see the working drawing in the background of a photo further down in this entry. I still hadn’t completed the drawing as the work began on the  saucer.

Drawing is in place, it is filled in and adjusted. 

Chasing in the motif.

One side of the chased line is put down and I begin to rough push the background away from the figures. 

With the background work hardened I remove the saucer from the pitch bed and clean it with turpentine.

I did the first bit of repoussè on plasticine rather than pitch. This will save me time cleaning pitch off of the front before start the middle portion of the chasing work. It also allows me to check the front as the work progresses. I started by placing slices of plasticine on the saucer and pressing it into the surface.

I rolled the plasticine flat, turned the saucer over and pressed the plasticine onto the binder’s board. The board will allow me to turn the plate as I work depressing the animals and leaves on the back of the saucer.

The plasticine sometimes blackens the copper. It isn’t permanent.

The back of the back and front of the saucer after I finished the repoussè and cleaned the plasticine residue off of it. Now it is ready to be annealed. 

Reset onto the pitch bed, I outlined the figures with a small circle chasing tool and began to texture and press the background for a stronger contrast.

The saucer bends as the background goes down lifting the edges which pops the pitch out of the bed. It loosens the saucer which comes of too, it happened  three times as I worked around the border.

When the saucer popped off of the bed, I took that as an advantage and corrected the saucer distortion with a mallet before replacing it on the bed with a heat gun.

This is one way I corrected the distorted shape of the saucer,  holding the rim on my table edge, turning and striking it with a large mallet.

With the saucer replaced onto the pitch bed and its background work hardened, I began to add detail to the bull and model its surface.  I’ll continue with that process on all of the raised figures in the border.  After that it will be annealed again and I will start on the final design work, evening the background texture and further defining the figures.

It’s taking me a long time to tell about the trip to Canada. In the meantime, since that trip there was also a week in Santa Fe with our friends David and Mary Jane, there’s a backlog of photos and I want to talk about current activities.

I have registered for school at FIT, finished the Lion Cups (and am beginning to market them) and am working on two small candy bowls. The whole perspective of metal work has changed from making one piece that I want as a single object into making the model of the piece that I want for reproduction. I even look at jewelry pieces as modular, to use the castings in necklaces and bracelets, as pendants and brooches. The drawings I have made in my sketch books over the past three years are coming to life as pieces of a collection of similar pieces, adaptable to different stones and mechanical connections.

First, photos of the Lion Cups; I made special boxes for them treating them like the treasures they are. The copies are in pure silver with 24 karat gold inside. They weigh just under 5 ounces each.

Here they are in the boxes,  paste paper covered and lined with green velvet.

I have also finished another small bowl based on Colman’s Drawing.  It’s got a smaller diameter so that the sides are taller which lets the ‘Shields’  be seem more easily.  The first bowl was wider with an impressive inside, the out side was more difficult to see below eye level.  The new bowl has a deeper scalloped edge.  The first bowl is in the works to be produced as a silver plated copper bowl, when that one is done satisfactorily we will have a mold made for this one too.

Over the weekend I started to raise two 5″ disks of copper. I have the urge to make a sugar bowl and creamer.  As it turned out the disks were too small for the shape and size I had in mind and I decided to turn the small disks into candy/nut dishes.  Here are some progress shots to the point where I am about to start the chasing phase of the work.

I sank the disks into a depression to start and this shot was taken after the second raising.  At this point I began to push the bowl on the right out with the hook hammer on a sand bag.  The bowl on the left had been intended to be a kind of pedestal saucer before I decided that it too was too small for the intended purpose, so I shifted course and raised it as a bowl.  Each of the disks have different diameter bases, it’s just a little behind the bowl that was on a surer path to its final shape.

I’m about half way up from the base of the small diameter bowl in this shot.

The large bowl was raised again and the pair is almost the same height. The larger bowl holds 8 ounces of liquid.

The large bowl was rounded out and I began to draw the chasing design, it is to be a companion to my first wine cup, I’m using the same stencils and layout.

The bottom design has yet to be drawn onto the bowl.

I intend to design the small bowl as a companion to the Lion Cup, that will involve considerable redrawing as the stencils are too tall for this bowl.

I’ll open this entry with a shot of my display for Art by the Ferry  which took place the first two weekends of  June. The photo was taken by  our friend Sarah Yuster. It turned out to be a successful show. It was on the tail of that energy that I made the following new pieces for the upcoming show this weekend at the Conference House on the southern tip of Staten Island.  It is to be the first Raritan Bay Arts Festival.  Wish us luck and temperate weather.

I have just finished this long silver chain with faceted, polished aquamarine nuggets and hammered silver rings. I loved these stones the minute I saw them, I have others that will be wired together in the byzantine style as the summer progresses. 

Here’s a close up. The hammered silver rings flash and sparkle when the chain moves.

I finished this chain of triplets at the beginning of the week: a choker made of  polished aquamarine stones in a freeform cube shape with large round freshwater pearls, there are matching earrings.  The hook works in all of the large rings and the piece could probably be worn doubled as a bracelet.

This is a collection of earrings and a few pendants in stone and glass that I put together for summer and evening wear.

I also worked on the Lion Cup this week, It will take a little longer  than I expected getting it finished and ready for wine. There’s a lot of polishing to be done on the inside and on the lip. Here’s a photo of the cup as it came from the electro form mold.  We have ordered another one.

We had a mixed bag of weather this weekend. A beautiful Saturday and torrential downpour on Sunday. There’s water in the basement. It rained Monday too and I stayed inside to finish work I wanted to deliver and show today. The Lion Cup is done, I intend to have a mold made so that we can have it electro formed in a variety of metals and finishes.
Her are two shots.

I went into the city today to buy gold leverbacks for a pair of earrings to go along with the necklace I finished yesterday.  The beads are carnelian, they alternate in a chain with 9-10 mm freshwater pearls. The necklace is just under 20″ long, all the wire and findings are 14kt gold, I soldered and forged the hook clasp.  It’ll be available on my website soon, as a set for $350. Or you can email me at colsage@earthlink.net

The Azaleas are blooming out of sequence this year because of the little heat wave we had a few weeks ago and the prolonged cool weather we are having now.

My cross between an Exbury and  a Ghent hybrid  azalea is having a banner year. I love the color which is more subtle than here in the photograph. You’ll see the whole bush in the pans of the garden at the bottom of this entry.

The Ken Janek Rhododendrons are also blooming in a strange way this year.  In the past the blooms all were together, the bush showing pink buds and then with the flowers opening the intense pink was all gone. This year some flowers are opening  and some buds are delayed so that we have a real splash of mixed color.  Colman thinks it’s because the plants are sensitive to the microclimates around each bush; sunny branch, cool pocket, warm draft.

In the front the Sekidera Azalea in blooming. The flowers are very nice and large, but the bush itself looks wretched most of the year. I cut it back severely last year and it started to look better, I’ll do the same this year after it finishes blooming, that is if it doesn’t continue to rain like it has the past few weeks.

Here are two pan shots of the back yard, one dappled with sunlight when I got home today around 4:30 and then again a little later as the sun got behind clouds. You can see my glowing, orange azalea in front of the greenhouse. The red azalea on the left in the shade pan is Girard’s Scarlet, the one in the center is Silver Sword, called that because the leaves are variegated with white edges.

The underlying project is making the spout for my teapot. This past Friday I made a new stake from a stainless steel rod on which I could close the test spout I’m making out of copper. The spout is apparently way too big for my pot and Gennady assures me that we will be able to cut the model down to determine the proper amount of silver needed for the pot. I have already cut off about 50 mm from the narrow end.

This new stake is designed to be put into a vise while I use it. The interesting and difficult thing about making a shape like this is the number of stakes I use in the course of a few minutes.  Closing the seam along the top took considerable work, I got it very close but Gennady  got it even tighter.  The closing is necessary because he wanted me to solder the first inch or so of the spout end. We used a delrin mallet for all of this closing and shaping.

I found this stake very useful in shaping the bell of the spout which helped to close that part of the seam.  Now that the end is soldered, Gennady wants me to planish the spout before we make any cuts to find the true form within this bell.

At home, the main push has been to finish what I am now calling the Lion Cup. I removed it from the pitch and used some of my snarling irons to push the animal bodies into higher, rounder relief.  The work hardened background kept the cup in shape while I worked on the cup inside, pushing the forms out a little more. I am continually amazed by the dramatic change in appearance a slight movement of the metal makes.  Here’s the snarled cup, off of the pitch, after it was annealed. 

I put it back on the pitch stick and began to texture the background with a small nail punch. The background work started by outlining all of the figures with a single line of marks. I found that I had to slightly overlap the little punch marks while making the outline because when I put them side by side, it looked like the figures had perforated edges. Once a background area was surrounded, I filled in with a lot of marks, I added a circle or crescent in some of the larger areas to bring a little  more continuity to the design narrative.

It took several sessions in about 4 days to complete the entire surface of the background.

Here is the cup bottom. While it was off of the pitch, I signed the piece with my mark. I happen to have a pipe that was the perfect thickness and diameter to work as a stake for this decorated bottom. One point and one trefoil have been modeled, that’s the next step for the sides too.

March 5, 2010

Friday I began to make a copper spout in the proper gauge. I flattened the foil spout and made a paper copy adding about 7 mm for the decorative edge where it is to connect to the pot and another 7 mm on the seamat one end where the foil model didn’t join as it should.

Here’s the 18 gauge piece. I began on the sand bag but had to move to the depression in a stump.

The stump is more effective with the delrin mallet.

After getting the basic shape to move I switched to a ball peen type hammer to stretch the metal a little.

Then with various stakes,  the shape began to be refined and closed.  I’m using the delrin hammer on the stakes.

Gennady has me trying to institute some of the breaks in the curve on the underside of the spout.

The spout was annealed and pickled before trying to close it some more.

March 12, 2010

Trying to close it some more and flare the edges that will attach to the pot.

After annealing it was apparent that the spout is way too big for my pot.  We decided to continue. I can cut the flange down and trim the spout length.  My original idea and proportion is in there somewhere. It’s change in size is probably from the flattened, stretched original pattern and the bit I added for the flange and an edge that didn’t close in the foil model. I’ll trim it at the pencil line.

March 12 or there about. . .

At home, I’m chasing the bottom of my cup. A stencil for part of the radiating design of trefoils and points.

All chasing is in.

Setting the background down.

The first pair of beakers I made  are  for me chase designs that are influenced by cylinder seals. I cut stencils from sheets of mylar for two motifs from a seal’s impression, one of a lion with a goat and one of a large boar with a leaf form. The stencils allow me to place, repeat and reverse directions of the designs around the cup.

Designs were drawn onto the beaker with a sharpie and then scratched  in with an awl. I cleaned the sharpie ink off and set the supporting dowel into a vise so I could begin chasing the designs into the copper. In the next photo, I have already chased lines on the lip and foot of the cup, the scratches are where I will begin to chase the animals onto the cup.

The chasing has started.

I remade my small chasing tool. When it was made last year, it was for chasing curves, I never used it because the regular chasing tool made the gentle curves that I needed very well. The curve tool, however, seemed to just dig in to the metal and was difficult to use. This design requires tighter curves than I can make with the main chasing tool. I looked at the curve tool again and decided that it dug in because the arc of its bite was too round. It was annealed and I let it cool slowly between slabs of fire brick, then I filed the high part of the arc off of the tool to make it closely match the gentle arc of  my main tool. The arc is flatter now like the big tool, the curves are a close match, but this one is on a shorter length of bite.  Now the tool works like it should, gliding along without digging into the metal. I’m only chasing outlines at this stage, but I have scratched in some of the future detailling.

Here’s a close-up of some of the chasing.

Between sessions of chasing I was also raising on two new beakers, one slightly larger and one smaller than the pair I finished last week. Placing the design on the first beaker showed me that I would need some different diameters and heights. I bought a 5″ (126 mm) and a 6″ (172 mm) disk, raising one with a 45 MM diameter and the other with a 50 mm diameter,  aiming for  heights over 75 mm.  Here’s what my cache of pots looked like when I got to class last Friday. There’s also a pin in the lower left that I had begun to make for Colman (his birthday was the 21st).  While in class I made another snarling iron with a small tip. I know I will need one for the new designs.

I finished the pin Saturday and made a box out of paste paper and maroon velvet to present his gift.

Here I have begun to push one side of the chased line down, the branch and one side of the lion is done.

I won’t do the detail lines at all right now,  not having done final working drawings I want to think about it some more and look at photos of the impressions that cylinder seals make before committing to tool marks.  here’s a close-up.

I have to put the cup on the back side of the vise to get to some of the lines properly, the tool can only be seen from one side while I am working with it.

Now I am beginning to put the background down with broader polished tools.  The areas are large and I may have to make a pattern to get it all to go down to the same level around the cup.

Another close up, there’s still a lot of work to be done so I am not worried about the small flaws and irregularities.

I used the sharpie to mark in some of the details on the boar’s hind quarter.  Then I scratched in one line, chased it  and then scratched in the next line.  It felt like I had better control if I made one scratched and chased line at a time. Doing it that way allowed me to use the already chased line as a guide in chasing another line near it.  After  chasing I removed the ink for better visibility.

AfterI finish putting the background down I will remove the cup from the pitch and use a snarling iron to push the animals out a little, then it will be time to anneal and put the cup on the pitch ended dowel again for finishing.