Nature Pendant

Feb 6th-20th

Project goals and process:

Make a pendant out of layers of metal, using basic techniques (sawing, filing, drilling, sanding, texturing, riveting) and several colors of metal. At least one surface should be textured and one should be colored. Incorporate at least one rivet of each type (standard, flush, tube, spacer).

Roll Printing

• Metal must be clean and dry (copper, bronze and brass work best because they are soft)

• Pattern for printing must be dry (no green leaves, snails, etc.)

• Pattern must not be too thick

• Use brass backing sheet (on window sill) to make the sandwich for rolling

• Layer order: work piece, pattern, backing sheet

• If you do not use the backing sheet, the pattern may transfer to the rollers which can damage them and be a very expensive problem.

• Open rollers, place sandwich between rollers, tighten rollers onto sandwich

• Move blue dial to ‘0’ to mark the thickness of sandwich

• Open rollers, remove sandwich, close rollers so dial goes back to ‘0’ setting

• Close rollers further to ‘13’, this will provide pressure needed to imprint workpiece

• Roll piece through rollers

• Flatten and replace brass backing sheet on window sill

Do not:

• Put too much pressure on rollers—these machines are sensitive and can be severely damaged if something too thick or with too much pressure goes through

• Put anything dirty (oxides, wax, dust) or wet through—this will leave residue or water on the rollers; residue will get on other workpieces, water will rust rollers

• Put anything through without the brass backing to protect the rollers

• Let the pattern material extend past the metal edges

• Force anything through—if it is too difficult, stop and ask

The brief is to concentrate on nature and so I have decided to focus on birds and nests. I chose to do this because I think the layering of twigs and leaves etc in a nest, suits the brief with the techniques we are learning-space riveting- to show the different layers in a nest. Also, to focus on the detail in a nest, I will be experimenting with wire, creating samples to see if the wire is as effective as I'm imagining it. I am also going to look further into texturing the piece. To enhance the detail in the textures, I will experiment with colouring, perhaps mainly concentrating on Jax and removing the surface, so that the Jax sits in the textures. I will also be using titanium, and will be colouring it to an almost duck egg blue. I will also create some samples of texturing with a hammer, using different shaped heads to create different sized dents, and also using letter stamps to create texture, I can then be in control of the lines, and 'draw' with the hammer.

Here are the pages to my sketchbook, they include designs, inspiration, ideas, colour charts, titanium notes, proposals, methods, artist research, final photos and my final conclusion.

Artist research

The thing I loved most about this project is that we used and experimented with titanium, which I  haven't used before. It's all done through voltages and currents, and the volume of voltage changes the colour of the metal.

Sample piece

Here is the sample piece I made,  I created this, to see how the wire between the metal sheets would look, I think it worked very well on such a small piece, but came to the decision that it wouldn't look as great on a larger piece, especially beings I will be cutting out small branches out of my final piece.

Final images of my piece and how it could be worn.. 

The thing I would change about this piece, is making it smaller. As it is such a large piece, it would make a very heavy piece of jewellery, but over all I am happy, especially with the colour and texturing.