Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Copper Pendants

Being the kind of person who is not content to keep doing the same old thing, I like to challenge myself when it comes to making crafts. I love to experiment with new materials and techniques whenever possible, and I had always wanted to try metalwork…there is something irresistible about the shiny allure of metal. These etched and oxidized copper pendants are my first efforts in metalcraft. Each is a hand-cut copper plate (1 ½” x 2”) etched in acid. The portions of the plate that are not etched are coated in resist and the etched portions have the resist removed before the acid bath. The pendants are hung on 18 inch spiral-braided hemp cords with pounded copper s-clasps. So far, I’ve made four pendants: 1) A Horned Lizard (AKA Horny Toad) 2) Running Ponies 3) A Frog and 4) The Venture Brothers, Hank and Dean. The Venture Brothers pendant has two sides, with Hank and Deans faces on the front and their partially formed “Clone Slugs” on the back.












Monday, July 13, 2009

Jellyfish Panel Bracelet

Here’s another jellyfish-themed craft to go along with the same motif of last week’s entry. This is actually one of the favorite things I’ve made and I put a lot of detail work into the design. This is a panel bracelet with metallic blue acrylic paint antiquing and image transfers of jellyfish in circular windows. I had the idea to do coral pieces to join the panels together and I think that’s the detail that really brings it all together. I did get a little carried away with them, though, and the bracelet ended up too big for my tiny wrist! But I loved working on this project a lot