Week 2 !

I'm still not organised enough to Blog the way I want to !  I was going to take photo's of everything I did last week but camera battery is dead and the charger is not where it's supposed to be. (Not looking at anyone.)

 

So, last week we got a brief to design and execute a ring and incorporate the skills we learned the week. Before I show you a photo, I should say we've decided our class motto will be " Next time, I'll do it differently ". This comes from the self criticism skills we've perfected. So here's the brief and finished ring.


 On Tuesdays, we have a workshop with Chris Carrol who is a traditional Silversmith with a workshop in the city. http://www.corksilver.com. With Chris, we do traditional apprentice excercises. In this case it was to make a Tea Caddy spoon. The point was to practice piercing (sawing) and pleinishing (hammering).

 

On wednesday we got a new brief, to make a ceremonial piece. Again we must use the new skills which are coming at us fast and furious. I thought of making a kind of Celtic Tiara but settled instead for a Binder. This is used in pagan marriage ceremonies to tie the wrists of the two vict... em, bride and groom together. It's still a work in progress. Our instructor gave me a crash course in repousse so I had a great time hammering out a spiral disc. I'm still evolving the finished look of the piece, so I'll have a photo soon. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my walk to and from the train station everyday. Here's an old window above the Tikki graffiti I posted last time. I always liked that window and was glad to see them restore the building but with the economy coming to a grinding halt , so has the restoration.

I like this little flower design. It would look cool as a cabochon in a ring 

Week one.

This will be a "day in life" sort of blog. I'm not used to blogging so bear with me for a while. I'm sure I'll be more efficient after a week or so.

I live about 20 miles from school so I have an hours journey every morning, divided between

Car, Train and a nice walk. Usually I have the train station to myself.

On my walk I pass some interesting graffiti. They have a "Tiki" feel to them so I'll store them away and maybe use them for inspiration later as a pendant

On Wednesday afternoon we had drawing class. I've never had formal art classes before so I was

really eager to see what was involved. We did lots of excercises based around assembled objects we brought in. I brought some sea shells and a crab claw. (I live near the beach). We drew them as we saw them, then with our eyes closed, without looking at the page ( oddly, harder than with eyes closed ) and so on...

On my walk home, I saw some things I found interesting. I like the contrast between the old red brick building and the new Apartment block in the distance. Brick/glass, dull/shiney, red/blue, old /new and so on...

There's also an art nouveau style design on a building just around this corner....

And on to the train station. I must show you this station in a future blog. It's been in loads

of movies where they need a really Victorian looking train station. This view is of St Lukes Church. It belongs to the city now and sometimes has Art exhibitions there. The windows were designed by Michael Healy. I've never been in it so I must make a point the next time I'm up there. (Henchys pub is just across the road, an excuse in itself to go up to St. Lukes !)