Sunday, November 20, 2011

More Shawl Pins

Here are a couple more shawl pins.  These were made with a texture sheet and then coated with mica powders.  Quite elegant, if I do say so myself.



Saturday, November 19, 2011

Shawl Pins

I've been making a bunch of shawl and/or scarf pins lately.  Here are some examples:

Psychedelic


Denim complete with "stitching"

Copper

Monday, November 14, 2011

Spray Box

I've been using Preserve Your Memories II (PYMII) to seal objects covered in mica powder but the fumes are intolerable.  It's usually too windy to spray outside where I live and today it is pouring rain, so I had to devise a way to spray inside without suffocating myself.  My solution is a spray box, shown below.  I took a large cardboard box and cut two holes in the side.  Then, using good old duct tape, I attached two long rubber gloves through the holes.  It is sort of like the containers scientists use to handle dangerous substances.  Then I put a piece of clear plexiglass on top of the box so I can see what I'm doing.  I lift the top, put the objects to be sprayed in the box, lower the top, insert my hands into the gloves and spray.  It's not completely air tight, but it reduces the fumes to a tolerable level.  I think I will put some cling wrap on the underside of the plexiglass, so if it gets coated in spray eventually, I can just change the cling wrap.


Inside of the box



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

My first etching project

Some folks from my clay guild got together for a class on etching copper taught by Elaine Kennedy, who did a great job of introducing us to the technique.  During class I just experimented with various resists, but after I got home, I tried to do something for real. This is a copper shawl pin etched with figures modeled after petroglyphs.