Studio play

This weekend is a quiet one for me. No workshops, so I‘ve been playing. Today I made some copper hoop earrings with turquoise beads. First of all I annealed some thick copper wire and hammered flat. I drilled holes to thread sterling silver wires that will hold the turquoise beads.
      I balled up sterling silver wires, threaded the small beads onto the wires, through the drilled holes and then hammered the ends to prevent the beads from falling off.
I cut lengths of copper wire and made a loop in the middle, then threaded the ends through the hoops and hammered each end to keep them in place.
  
The earring hooks are also sterling silver, balled up and shaped.
  That’s it! I will make a few more of these and put some in my online shop!

PMC Pro

I’ve had a few problems with PMC Pro lately, the items have not sintered and  broken. So I’ve made a few adjustments to the firing schedule that the PMC Guild have published. I have raised the temperature of firing to 768 c and had a longer firing time.
These rings were made flat and then hammered around a mandrel.
   

Moon Setting

I woke up at 5.30am and the moon was shinning through my bedroom window.I just had to take a few photos. It was beautiful.
   

Two Rocks Sea Rescue Helicopter Exercise

Today was really an exciting day as I was a trainee crew member on Sea Guardian 2. We took part in a helicopter training exercise with the RAAF. The exercise coordinated training of RAAF helicopter pilots and the TRVSRG. A RAAF crew member was winched from Sea Guardian 2 to the helicopter. The RAAF then performed various exercises simulating rescuing persons from the ocean. We later performed a ‘man overboard’ exercise rescuing the RAAF crew member from the water and getting him on board Sea Guardian 2. These coordinating training exercises are so beneficial to both organisations. A previous exercise was also held last week.
  
  

Silver Metal Clay Workshop

This group of students made some interesting pieces at Tuesday’s workshop.  
 
  
  

Mentorship Program

The next couple of days we explored box and cage constructions. The box construction were made by cutting out the silver clay and joining the pieces together to form a box. We actually made our boxes into little houses to go on top of the rings. The cages are going to have beads threaded through them.
  
   
 

Mentorship Program

Continuing the programme with emerging artist Rachel, we finished setting the stones into pendants and started with the techniques of making seamless rings.
    
   Rings drying on the mandrel
  

Country Arts Mentorship Program

Last year I was an artist in Residency at Mullewa near Geraldton for two weeks. One of my students Rachel McKenzie was inspired by the workshops there. She successfully applied to the Governments Regional Arts for funding as an emerging artist. This week Rachel started her mentorship programme with me.
We started with the techniques of setting stones in silver metal clay. We made bezel wires and also used commercially made bezel wire to set cabochons. Rachel had some uniform commercial cabochons and I had some rough cut polished matrix opals.
Rachel found a dried leaf in the garden which she decided to make a mould from and use the texture in some of her pendants.
These are some of the photos from the beginning of the five days.
   
Pieces drying                                     Rachel’s leaf pendants