the continuing story of the double dog portrait

i made a new mold of the teddy and sarah portrait yesterday.  i had a bit of trouble as the first metal one that i cast.  it cracked, and had to be put back together with beeswax before i could make the new mold.  don't know exactly what happened to make it crack.  it was in a place where it had cracked in the greenware state. ......that would be because i, never leaving well enough alone, saw that it had warped slightly and applied pressure to the copper greenware.  thus..... it cracked.  i repaired the crack with paste, but it broke again in the firing.  i could have gotten away with that if it were in the bronze clay.  i paste things together all the time.  i forgot to put any lavender oil in the copper paste, so maybe that was it.  any way, having lost my confidence, some what, i cast the new mold in metal clay adventure's bronze.  i really like the bronze, and the shrinkage is the same as their copper, so it fills the same purpose.  the piece came out beautifully, and another third smaller.  still have a couple of firings to go, though to gt the size i want, but aren't they pretty?

there are a couple of tiny marks that shouldn't be there, but i filled them and they should come out in the next casting.  i cast it in copper this time, and i'm drying it slower with weights in it, so we'll see if that stops the warping.  i'll let you know tomorrow....... it should go in the kiln, tonight.

wonder how i should mske the bail???

queen kathleen is a five star queen, but i've only given her three....

.....can't have her getting a big head!  five stars is a weighty responsibility.  this tiara was custom made for kathleen and is actually glued instead of soldered.  i've used e 6000 which holds anything to anything.  the silicone is more flexible than solder. but, the big advantage is that i don't have to reheat my beautiful leaves.   they have such lovely patinas, that i hate to change by applying heat.  of course if this solution doesn't work as well as i think it will, all my pieces are lifetime guaanteed!

mother forgive me.........it's been two weeks since my last confession.....

i've been really remiss about reporting, and i have made lots of discoveries in the last couple of weeks.  first of all, i had a class, with one actual student, and we made ' my heart has wings'. (not pictured here)  we had cracking of the bronze, and sintering falure in the part around the dicroic glass stone, and i've been trying to figuring out why. sometimes i think it's the luck of the draw, but..... my piece pulled away from the hole cut for the glass, a bit, but, my student's completely pulled away, and failed to sinter properly.  i now think lavender oil is essential when making paste, especially if you are adding a fair amount of water in the construction process.  and, lavender oil in the clay as i condition it, seems to make the bronze stronger after firing, especially when i'm firing at a lower than recommended temp.  i know alot uf us are superstitious about this, but i did not have good experience with olive oil, highly recommended though it is.  i used olive oil in the clay for 'penrod and the windy day' (pictured above), and had some sintering failure there, too.  i find i like to fire at a lower temperature.  at about 1490, i get lovely irridescent, and tetallic patinas, and at the recommended 1550 for three hours i get mostly black.

next up......a leafy tiara in the making!  these are bronze clay leaves, before firing.   and.........

again and again....and again

........now for the rest of the story.... after a couple of tries, i finally reproduced the accidentally 'broken wings' pendant.  i learned a few things on the way:  don't be in a hurry.  when i cut the clay for the new 'broken wings'  i didn't stop to pay attention to the thickness of the whole piece, thus when i broke off the part to be 'broken', i didn't notice that that part was thinner than the main.  the small piece shrank much more than the rest of it, and so was not usable.  back to the drawing board.  the second piece i fired turned out a much better size, and since i did have the forsight to drill holes for the 'stitches' in the clay while it was in the unfired stage, assembly went much quicker.  here is the finished piece along with the original, it's inspiration.  so next time i'm faced with the question, 'can you recreate an accident?'   i'll be able to say, yes.....yes you can....ifyou think twice! 

 here's one of my poems that seems to go with this. 

sky blue woman

 sky blue woman thought she'd never be whole,

the wind knocked out of her earth-strong soul

.......but when the dust cleared and she shook our her wings,

 she was grateful to find they were still useful things.

  when sky blue woman is brought to her knees,

 the mother earth whispers to the wind in the trees,

 and the trees rise up to speak to the sky

 that bends over the Woman with the visioned eye. 

 the wind and the trees and the sky embrace,

 to dry all the tears from the Woman's face

alpha and omega....the beginning and the end

my project for the last 2 days has been to re-make a 'wing and a prayer', and to photograph each step.  many people have not seen the process of a taking a piece of jewelry from clay to finished metal. 

please visit my website and click to the portfolio page to see the show.   i'm really proud of this!

leigh dunnington-jones.com