Continuing with the bronze casting saga. On tuesday it was time to hacksaw the sprues (sp?) and pouring cup etc away. I now have a rather unattractive bowl and four copies of the rubber exhaust thing of dubious worth. I took the bowl and one of the exhaust things away, to show at my mid term review, and I may pick up the others, or I may leave them. They all need finishing and we now have only 10 weeks of studio time left before our last portfolio submission and final show assessment. Yeep.

We've have been given some life drawing classes in our timetable this term. It's years since I did any life drawing classes so I'm a bit rusty and my drawing style is scribble, rather than photograph. But, it is lovely to be drawing again in a class situation. Here are a few scribbly 5-10 minute drawings.

Overy - Holkham with a friend. The weather was cold but with beautiful sunshine, bright, slanting winter light. We saw a marsh harrier and geese. And I took photographs of sea shells, seaweed and a set of crossing tracks with some seagulls, of which there were great flocks.  

I haven't had a chance until today to crack open my bronze casting experiments. I think the end products will not be much to write home about, but I'm beginning to learn the process. To that end, here is the next stage. The fired and filled mold, the objects all covered in plaster, and washed and wire brushed a little. 

I love the flashing. I had a feeling I would as my work is often about happy accidents. I'm not loving chipping it off with a hammer and chisel though, there is more to that than meets the eye.  

The Ted talks are amazing. I love this one

    

Some weaving

Last week I was threading up a loom. This time I want to make a crumpled cloth, preferably with ordinary yarns as high twist yarns are not cheap. I have a silk warp (32 e.p.i) on two beams so that one set of threads can be very tight and one a little baggy which hopefully will lead to a seersucker fabric. I am working on a 16 shaft harris loom.