Working along side the metal and illustrator workshops I have been carrying on with playing around in ceramics. I have shown previously how I had tried to almost capture the snakeskin in wax, and unfortunatly it didn’t work, so after being taught how to work with slip I played around pressing the skin into the clay to create really delicate prints of the pattern, some I have left pressed in because once it goes in the kiln that snake skin will burn away and hopefully the indent of the pattern will be left. I enjoyed the process of working with clay but I am still waiting to see the outcome! (It takes at least two days in the kiln) I appreciate how delicate the pattern is, but am not confident about how heavy the material is. I think it contradicts each other, but then again so does creating a web like structure out of metal.
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I had my well awaited lazer cutter induction yesterday and I am very interested in how I can use this to create the patterns I have been working on in the illustrator workshops. He showed us the vast quantity of materials you can work on and I thought this process would be perfect for experimenting with making my patterns delicate. We were each given the chance to make our own test sample and this made me want to put my own work into the machine even more. I want to experiment with cutting into natural materials - linking in with the starting theme of my project.
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I mentioned how I was curious if there was a way I could physically recreate the way my pattern creates it’s self. One straight line at a time, and Liz in the metal workshop introduced me to soft soldering. I was able to cut copper coated strands into short pieces and start to build them up using the solder at the edges. Every time I add a new strand to the piece it grows in size and shape and I love how it is almost growing. I’m not going to pretend like i’m very good at soldering, because it’s taken a while for me to even create this small piece however I LOVE working with it and seeing it form. It’s the process as well as the outcome that I enjoy and it is something that I plan on developing further.
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Recently we have also been shown how to photo etch onto copper. It is quite a long process and unfortunatly mine didn’t come out as well as I had hoped, however I gave it another go with a slightly different method and it worked much better. I love working in metal and I plan on going back to try and create my pattern in a style I am more confident in. I really want to represent the patterns in a more delicate way. I feel the drawings represent a web - each straight line attaching it’s self to another creating angles, although I have started using metal to create things more 3D it would be interesting if I could develop this more. I would love to see if there was a way I could actually recreate my drawings with metal rods?
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I started doing some drawing today based on the print on the snakeskin, with out realising my work took a very geometric edge to it which I really like. All of the shapes that make up the skin can be narrowed down to traingles and quadrilatrils so using illustrator I started playing around and creating motifs.
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This morning I was taught how to achieve textures and drill holes and cut metal. To get the snake skin inprint it took a few attempts because getting it right first time is very trial and error. I really enjoyed working in the metal workshops and it’s something I want to pursue more, i’m not sure if I like or dislike the final outcome of snakeskin on the copper - however I do feel that metal will be very helpful to help me develop some type of body adornment.
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It appears the easiest way to identify a snake is by it’s head shape - it would be interesting to see if I could incorporate this into my work.
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If i’m going to make jewellery I need to know abit more about it..
To sum up what jewellery is - click here!
Incorporating snake skin into jewellery is something that has been done before. Rather than having realistic skin I want mine to be more about the pattern of the skin and the shapes it creates, which is why I want to focus firstly on creating drawings based on my photographs.
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On friday morning I experimented with trying to recreate my snake skin. Our first idea was to syringe wax into the the skin, wait for that to harden, peel of the skin and to have a solid mould to work from HOWEVER this proved much trickier than it seems. Although the snake skin looks complete we discovered that it has tiny holes all over it, hard to see with the eye that the wax just poured out of which left me with flat skin with a thin waxy coat. To avoid this problem we thought about covering the outside of the skin with glue to patch up any holes - and try again but the first problem to this was keeping the skin in the tube shape. I found a perfect plastic tube thin enough to slide into the skin like a skeleton to give the skin it’s shape and this weekend i’ve been applying glue to create a seal around it. I hope this is sucsessful but if not on monday morning I will attempt another way to make a mould and this is something I could then use to make jewellery.
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