Mystical Cats

I love cats and these wonderful creations by Anne, Cranky Cat Lady are glorious.

Photos of my Mystical Cats from Lyn Belisle’s Mystical Cat Shamans class.  The faces are her work (she does lovely ceramics) but the rest is mine.  Leafy girl is Thera, Protector of Wild Things, the turquoise cat is Bast, my Mewse. Because you know how much cats love to help with your work.  Lots of vintage bits and pieces, handmade paper, and beads. They’re pretty big, about 14″ tall, and I’m going to have to move stuff around so I can hang them.

Thera, ©Anne, Cranky Cat Lady

Bast, ©Anne, Cranky Cat Lady

The Art of …

…portraiture, by Alice Neel

Alice Neel suffered many tragedies in her life, including the loss of several of her children. She suffered a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide and was hospitalized for over a year. Her work is infused with emotional intensity and a fearless realism. There was some criticism of her work contemporarily because it did not hold with the ideals of how the feminine should be portrayed in art, but Neel is now considered one of America’s best portrait artists. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City will be hosting an exhibition of Ms. Neel’s art from March 22 until August 1, 2021. Virtual Tours are available by request.

Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia), 1967, Alice Need. Image from The New York Review

 

 

 

Branding Stamp

I am finishing the kitchen-knives sets, and one of the tools that I was still missing in my toolbox was a branding stamp that could be used for wood and leather. For leather, I have used an impromptu one made from wood stabilized with epoxy, but that cannot be used to brand wood of course. But when making that I have figured out a process that could be also applied to making one out of steel, so after a lot of procrastinating the task, today I have finally bitten the bullet and took the two hours it needed.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size

The handle is from an extremely old and out-of-shape potato peeler. Maybe even antique, but I know of no museum that would take it of my hands so I have recycled it. The screw is recycled from old furniture. The stamp itself is from tool steel, although I will not be hardening it.

I could not tap the hole in the stamp very deep and well without re-grinding and thus destroying the taps, because standard taps need to go through.  Thus I could not cut very good threads in there, just two turns of half-assed ones. But that should not be a problem, a few dents for the thread to latch on to should suffice, friction should take care of the rest. It is not supposed to come apart, and if it comes apart, I will braze it.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size

The one advantage of having a logo consisting of only straight lines is that it made the job relatively easy. A bit of filing, a bit of grinding with an angle-grinder, and here we go. Up close there are some flaws and the width to height ratio is a tiny bit off, but that is just life. I have tossed one attempt due to flaws, but I think this one will do.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size

Wood branding is not an exact science, there will always be some irregularities. But with some practice, I should get crisp and nice logos that can be placed even in visible areas. Which is my intention.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size

And there is absolutely no doubt that on leather, the results are way, way better than those I got with my wood-carved impromptu stamp.

I may give it a go one more time to get the proportions better, but in the meantime, I am going to use this one. I doubt anyone will complain about it.

 

Patterns in Ice

From Avalus,

A muddy, frozen puddle by the roadside.
Boring, one might say.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

But, what interesting patterns in the ice, indicating the shrinking liquid underneath.
Let’s look closer.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

Structures emerge between the layers!
Let’s look even closer.

©Avalus, all rights reserved

The ice sheet that seemed so uniform from afar is structured, almost like cathedral glass, from many tiny crystals of ice.
Everywhere, there is beauty in the universe.
(This was pretty much my thought process when I came by that frozen puddle. That, and my cold feet, reminding me of my poor choice of shoes I took for that walk :D)

Resin Art: Spring in Space

Let’s start with the spring part and some explanation about how certain pieces are done.

While blue is and will always be my favourite colour, occasionally I want some other colour as well. In this piece I went for greens and yellows.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I’m not quite sure what to do with it. Most certainly a necklace, as it’s about 2″ wide, but I don’t think I’ll just screw an eyelet on. More like some easy wire wrapping. This piece has been worked “top to bottom”. All these UV resin pieces have many layers, which means I’m constantly working on 2 or three projects at once, adding a layer to one while the other one is curing under the UV lamp. There are two ways you can go: bottom to top or top to bottom. Most pieces are worked bottom to top: you start with a base, which can either be a free form, an epoxy blank or a bezel, and then add layer after layer.

When working with a mould, or in this case a concave blank, you add things to the bottom side (though of course you can add stuff to the top as well). This gives you a watery or ambery feeling as the light is bent and reflected.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This on the other hand is bottom to top. The seashell and the pearls are sitting on top of the blank with a blue background.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Starry night earrings. What can I say, I love everything galaxy themed…

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Not yet sure what to make with this one. This one has also been worked top to bottom in a mould as opposed to the other way round that full spheres are worked.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A little fun with some left over resin from the oval pendant.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Sparkly earrings with blue rhinestones and home dyed pink baby’s breath.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These were easy. I drilled some holes into the turquoise blanks and glued in the rhinestones, and now I’m again unsure. They would make rather large earrings, but also rather small pendants…

And last, but not least, Hekuni Cat’s die:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Hmpf. I’m constantly looking for good UV resin. I found some on Etsy and I really liked it, and I got 200 ml and when I tried to reorder, the seller no longer exported to Germany. Then I found some from a small German company, which wasn’t too expensive and I decided to give it a try. The website helpfully informed me that if I added another 489 € worth of good I’d get free shipping, but I declined. I was really keen on trying it out and thought that the die would be a good project for it.

Oh dear. First of all, it stinks. So. Much. I put on a normal N95 respirator and it was still almost unbearable. It can only be worked with wearing the half face respirator I also use when finding some hidden asbestos in the house. Then it came out rather runny, but quickly started to thicken, so it was a nuisance to get into the mould. I thought that this meant it was already curing, but then it didn’t cure for a long time and all the inlays pretty much sunk to the bottom.

When it had finally cured I noticed it had shrunk so much that there was a big hole inside and I needed to fill that one up with more resin. What I will say for this resin is that it cures extremely hard. Which made cleaning the project up difficult, of course…

Hekuni Cat, if you want another one I’ll make you a new one. If not, or in any case, I need your address. Youc an send it to Affinity submissions, voyager will surely pass it on to me.

 

Resin Art: Strawberries!

I need spring. Today feels a bit like early spring. The air tastes differently and the birds are chattier (mostly complaining about the neighbours’ cat camping out under the bird feeder). But honestly, this is my least favourite time. I still have about 4 weeks until it really turns green and I hate it. I don’t think I could move further north. Sure, if I’d grown up there, I’d probably only get seriously annoyed come March or April, but I’m used to getting sick and tired of winter come February.

Anyway, to cheer me up I made, you won’t guess it, resin jewellery.

First of all, I made lots of blanks from epoxy resin:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Here you can see exactly why I can’t work downstairs with the epoxy right now. All dull and bubbly. Also, when I took them out after 24 hours, they were still extremely soft. A few hours upstairs in the warm kitchen took care of that. So last night I took the red droplets and turned them into my favourite fruit.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

That’s always two droplets glued together, with a coat of red UV resin. I love working with mica powders as they give an amazing sparkle, but you got to be careful when working with UV epoxy because yeah, saturated opaque colours won’t cure. That’s why the blanks needed to be red already. The tiny seeds are caviar beads for nail art and no, it’s not as much work as it looks like to attach them. Finally I made some leaves with green UV resin and attached those. I’m so ready for spring.

I also got rq’s sphere done. Again, the pic sucks. They are not to be photographed.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Kitchen Knives Set – Part 7: Getting to Grips

These knives have full-width tangs, but no visible pins. As far as I can tell, nobody else is using this type of construction, so it might be somewhat unique

A few years ago Walter Sorrels made a video in which he tested various glues for fixing scales to tangs without pins. He made several mock-up knives from mild steel for this and they all have failed his stress test. Which consisted of tossing them in the air and letting them fall on the concrete pavement. As it turns out, the shearing forces during these impacts were too big for the glue to reliably stick to the steel and they all delaminated. But he gave me an idea on how to overcome this problem. I have tested the idea on one broken blade and it held out to several hammer blows before the scales delaminated  – and at that point, it was not only the glue that was failing but also the wood was starting to shatter and break. And since knife handles are not supposed to be hit with a hammer so I think it should be OK. I really hope it works out in the long term because I am going to make a lot of these. So if you want to know how this goes, read on. [Read more…]

Resin Art: More bling

No, I haven’t forgotten you, I just didn’t get around to taking pics last week. But to make up for it you’ll get lots of them this week.

First: dice. I haven’t played a pen and paper RPG since long before the pandemic, but I swear I’ll do so again. I ordered a die mould to see if that would work. The results are mixed.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Well, the first one was flat out unusable, because silly me put the lid on the wrong way round. The mould works with a little lid you put on top where the #1 is with just a tiny hole to allow for resin to escape or be added. And I put it in the wrong way round, so the sides came up short and there’s no #1. The only way to save it was to put in a hook and call it a pendant. the other one is actually really pretty, but the top side still isn’t what it should be. I decided to only show you the pretty sides.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Next, the unhpotographable galaxy spheres. Sorry. Too many curves and shiny for the damn camera to get a focus on. I’ll see if I can get a better one with the real camera.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These ones turned out really nice. Dyed baby’s breath and small brass hoops make them really light and elegant

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Chocolates anybody? I worked with a matte topcoat here, making them look like sea glass.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

These go nicely with the necklace from two weeks ago.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Black and white. Baby’s breath in clear resin combined with black semi circles in brass.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

“Garnets”. Same technique as the Mermaid Tears, this time in red. I made these shorter, but with at least as many droplets.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Galaxy tears with Bohemian glass beads. The blue is just amazing.

And last but not least, elegant circles:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The rings have baby’s breath, caviar beads and gold foil. The Bohemian glass beads in the centre are an amazing dark purple the camera refuses to catch.

IMPORTANT: If you have your eyes set on any of these pieces, I’ll put some up for sale for the upcoming fundraiser.

And finally here’s some pics from the “workbench”:

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is the small assortment of things I currently have upstairs. Yes, It’s the small assortments. BTW, one of the sensible additions to the pile was a small hand drill. While you can see the Dremel in the pic, the hand drill is useful for pre-drilling, especially on round surfaces, where the Dremel is prone to slip (it will drill your finger nicely). Just drill a mm with the hand drill, do the rest with the nice tool.

©Giliell, all rights reserved

This is how the kitchen table looks at the end of the night. Thanks to Rüdügür the vacuum robot I need to clean it up every night because the chairs need to go on the table.

The Art of …

… impressionism, by Edgar Degas

I love the feeling that Degas captured in this painting. The expression on the woman’s face is a mixture of serious decision making and delight, and the hats bloom across the canvas like flowers in the summer sun. Degas was known to paint only indoors, and he scoffed at his contemporaries who painted outdoors. Degas is best known for his paintings of dancers, and his ability to translate movement is evident in the active posture of the woman who seems to be rotating the hat to see it from different angles.

The Millenary Shop, 1855, Edgar Degas. Image from Wikiart.

Jack’s Walk

Brown dog with frosting. ©voyager, al rights reserved

Yesterday, over at Stderr, Marcus posted a piece outlining a project he’s tackling to resin(ate) Jack’s foot. I thought today I’d fill in the story of collecting the paw print.

About a month ago, Jack and I received a package from Marcus containing a dog foot-sized plastic frame, 2 bags of brightly coloured clay, 2 bags of plaster, a small, flat plastic device and a sheet of well-organized instructions. I talked to Jack about the project, and we decided to give it a go the next day. I’ve never worked with clay, so I read the instructions carefully a few times, then after breakfast, I plunged in. Marcus said to add water to one of the clay packages, which I did mixing well. Still, it wouldn’t absorb the full 1/2 c of water, and it was behaving like a non-Newtonian fluid, which is always fun but probably not what I was looking for. I was pretty sure the clay was too wet, but I put it into the frame anyway and tamped it down flat with the little plastic tool and called Jack.
Now, picture, if you will, Jack sitting on the living room carpet (he needs to be on carpet for stability), being a good boy and trying to do what Mummy says.
I pick up his good front foot first, but he can’t bear weight well enough on his other leg, and he wobbles a bit, so I let go of his leg before he falls over.
“Sorry, Mummy,” he says, “Maybe we should try the other foot.”
I tell him it’s not his fault and gently lift his sore front leg with one hand and moving the frame under it with my other hand, but this doesn’t work well either.
“Ouch, Mummy!” he says, pulling back again and again.
Finally, he looks me square in the eye and tells me, “I’m laying down now, Mummy. Go away!”
So I do, covering the clay in plastic wrap and putting it on my workbench.

The next day, I’d hatched a new plan to make a good impression. I’d wait until Jack was resting on my bed with one foot hanging over, and I’d press his foot into the clay with no need for him to stand up. Jack agreed that this seemed workable, and so after lunch, I helped Jack to bed, and we got the framed clay and pressed his foot into it. We made a good, deep press, and results looked great, except that our perfect paw pad impression disappeared less than a minute later. Vanished. Completely gone. Damn it, the clay was too wet.
“Nevermind, Mummy. Footprints are meant to be fleeting. This is a silly idea.”
I return the clay to my worktable, covering it only with paper to allow it to dry out a bit, but when I check it at bedtime, it’s dried hard, and I am unable to restore it with water. Now I understand why Marcus sent 2 packages of clay.

The next few days are spent negotiating with Jack, who finally agrees to try again if I provide him with a chicken foot. This is a treat introduced to Jack by Marcus, and so in the middle of a pandemic, I venture out to 3 various pet stores looking for chicken feet. I am pleasantly surprised to find them at a reasonable price, so I begin planning our third attempt at making a good impression. I’ve noticed that Jack can still pee like a boy on telephone poles, so he is able to raise a back foot without toppling over or pain. I discuss this with Jack, who sighs heavily and says, “sure, Mummy. Do you have my chicken foot?”

So, I begin again with fresh clay. This batch is a vibrant pink, and it looks pretty good to me just out of the package, so I decide not to add water this time and just press it into the frame as is. Jack and I position ourselves on the living room carpet with a chicken foot resting on the coffee table, looking poised for attack, and we begin. I raise Jack’s foot as if I were getting ready to towel dry it for him, then quickly place the frame underneath and set Jack’s foot down into it. He puts his weight on it for a few seconds, then I pick his foot straight up and pull the frame away. Jack sits down, looks at me pointedly, and asks if he can have his treat now.
“Good boy, Bubba. Go ahead,” I tell him, and he picks up the gnarled claw and walks away with it, crunching bones as he goes. The sound sets my teeth on edge, but I’m quickly smiling as I look at the clay. The impression is deep, detailed and not going away. It is, however, full of hair. Jack has bear paws for feet in the winter, and a bunch of hair has decided to stick to the clay. Oh, Oh. I tentatively try to remove some of it, but I’m making minor marks on the clay, so I stop and do the sensible thing and email Marcus asking if this can be fixed.
I am relieved to hear back that the hair won’t affect the outcome and that I should mix and pour the plaster and, once it’s dry, ship it to him as is, which is precisely what I did.

Bubba’s foot is now in Marcus’ hand, and he has wizardly plans for it, which he wrote about yesterday. (footy) I look forward to seeing what he makes of it. Jack is happy that the fuss is finished, but he still thinks that footprints are meant to be fleeting.