lol... I guess to prove your point, I just started doing lost-wax casting, and when I searched for 'lost wax casting' - this was one of the top hits... *sigh* I'd love to stop using FB - but unfortunately I think you are right...
red wax of a dragonfly-shaped pendant
The same pendant in bronze, with an image cabochon added to it.
red wax of the back of a dragonfly-shaped pendant
The back of the same pendant in bronze
I made my first experiments with lost wax casting this week - I'd been struggling with the metal clay process for too long.
Now I inject wax into my mold, and then take the wax to a casting house. They cast the piece in bronze for me.
Here are the red wax piece I made, and the bronze I got back:
A bronze pendant in the shape of a bear with an abstract texture on it, and a glass cabochon featuring an image
A bronze pendant in the shape of a bear with an abstract texture on it, and a glass cabochon featuring an image
A bronze pendant in the shape of a bear with an abstract texture on it, and a glass cabochon featuring an image
The back of a bronze pendant in the shape of a bear with an abstract texture on it
I haven't been posting on here much - but I have still been creating some new things - here are some #bear #pendants I made with #bronze #metalclay over the summer
Macro photo of a blue wow tulip
Macro photo of a strawberry cream tulip
Macro photo of a strawbery cream tulip
Macro photo of a cummins tulip
Some #photos of #tulips from my #garden this weekend: The spiky one is a 'Cummins' fringed tulip, the pink is a 'Strawberry Cream' double tulip, and the other purple one is a 'Blue Wow' double tulip... #art #flowers
a hand holding a bronze pendant in the shape of a picture frame, with a colourful image.
a hand holding a bronze pendant in the shape of a picture frame, with an interesting texture embossed on the back.
Since a lot of my sales are via #art galleries, I thought I'd try making a #pendant in the shape of a framed picture - I think it turned out pretty well. I embossed the texture from a soap film photo on the back, which I think was a nice effect.
I'd love to hear what you think of it!
a front view of a bronze pendant in the shape of a damselfly, with a glass cabochon featuring an image with trees and the moon.
a front view of a bronze pendant in the shape of a damselfly.
A new #pendant design in an damselfly shape, with #knotwork for the body. Made with bronze #metalclay, and featuring some #art that I created under a glass cabochon.
a quote from 'Covie' on X: It is ironic because trump firing a Black 4-star general as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff only to name a less qualified white man to the same job is the reason why DEI policies exist in the first place.
Trump fired a black 4-star general and replaced him with a white 3-star general, despite the role normally going to 4-star generals. This is the reason DEI policies came into place - give qualified, excellent black candidates a chance for jobs that would otherwise go to less-qualified white males.
A mockup of a dragonfly pendant design inspired by celtic knotwork, with a cabochon in the center featuring an image I created by blending together a number of photos.
I decided to revisit a #knotwork inspired #dragonfly #pendant that I did a while back - and update it to work with glass cabochons. I can only get glass in certain sizes, so I had to change things a bit - but I like it. Done in #blender, will be made in #metalclay, features #art I created.
a photo of light reflected off soap film - the same thing you use to blow bubbles with. the very short distance between the front of the film and the back causes interference patterns in light reflected from the film, so very tiny differences in film thickness can give big changes in colour. The patterns are fascinating and change constantly.
part of the rig I use to take photos of soap bubble film - what you don't see here are a flash set up with a big whiteboard to diffuse the light against the film.
Wow - apparently it's been almost 10 years since I've taken #photos of soap film / soap bubbles. A lot of my #artwork incorporates photos like this for both #colour and #texture - You can see one of the examples below, as well as an image of the setup I use to capture them. Need to do this again
A macro photo of a standard dwarf bearded iris, most likely a 'Blue Line' from my garden.
I just ordered some more spring planting #flowers yesterday, which got me thinking about how nice it will be to be out in the #garden again in a few months - so here's a #macro #photo of what I think is a 'Blue Line' bearded #iris from my garden (it came from a mix, so I'm not 100% sure)
Thank you!
A composite image created by digitally blending 4 photos I took with observations from the James Webb Space Telescope of NGC-346 - a stellar cluster in the small magellanic cloud. The photos are of a pond in Saskatchewan near where I grew up, plus light reflected off a soap bubble, plus two photos of a frilly tulip from my garden to add texture.
I haven't posted much of my #artwork here yet - this is a composite image I created by digitally blending photos I took of a pond in #Saskatchewan near where I grew up, light reflected off a soap bubble, and #photos of a #tulip, with observations from the #JamesWebb #Space Telescope of NGC-346
a mockup of a bronze pendant in the shape of a bear featuring an image made by blending together some photos.
Hi!! I found you through 'Even though I knew the end', which I loved!
Reading: "Buried Deep" by Naomi Novak
Playing: DA:Veilguard, Cyberpunk 2077 and Satisfactory
Making: working on a design for a bear pendant that I'll use to feature my artwork in.
*and* you attack capitalism and patriarchy... lol
if you own a non-online version of office - Crossover from www.codeweavers.com will let it run on Linux. You could likely also get it running with www.winehq.org - but crossover makes it so easy it's worth paying them, IMO.
I've been running Linux as my primary OS for many, many years... it can be an adjustment, but for the most part it is great. Good luck! For *real* docx support, there are a couple options - I believe the online versions of office work fine on Linux
This whole situation with Neil Gaiman is quite disgusting... I don't know if I'd have characterised him as a favourite author, but I've definitely enjoyed some of his work. It's disappointing, but perhaps not surprising to see this kind of thing --- as usual, Andrea says it very well...
a view of the front of a bear pendant.
a view of the back of a bear pendant.
Here's the final result of the #pendant I designed recently - created in #metalclay from a #3dprinted mold master made in #blender.
mockup of a pendant in the shape of a bear.
Decided to try making a #pendant without an image in it - I used a technique I've just been figuring out in #blender to make a 'wireframe' of a low-poly model of a bear I made. This is a mockup, but I've #3dprinted the mold masters, and have the first one in the kiln now.
the dried piece of metal clay
The final pendant, with the image in place.
Once dry, I take it out of the mold, file away the 'flashing' around the edges, and I fire it in a kiln, which sinters the bronze particles in the clay into a solid piece of bronze. I then polish the bronze and add a glass cabochon with an image I created on it to finish the piece.
3d prints of the mold masters on the bottom, and the molds they create on top
The mold halves filled with metal clay, sprayed with water so they don't dry out
a 'sandwich' of the two mold halves, held together with two wooden plates and elastic bands while they dry.
I then #3Dprint the two halves of the mold on a resin 3D printer, and use a 2-part silicon - #smoothon Mold Max 60 - to make the two mold halves. I then pack each mold half with bronze metal clay, and press the two half together while it dries.
3d model of the front half of a mold master.
3d model of the back half of the mold master.
Once I have the #pendant design nailed down, I create two #mold masters, one each for the top and bottom halves of the mold. If I want to make the piece in metal clay, I have to make the mold bigger than I want the final piece, to account for shrinkage, and to provide vents for drying.
a photo of a birch leaf, with an image superimposed
a screenshot of a pendant design in blender.
I thought it might be interesting to go through the process I follow to create my pendants here, using the birch leaf pendant I created recently as an example. I start out by creating a #3Dmodel of the pendant shape in #blender
a bronze pendant in the shape of a birch leaf, featuring an image made by combining photos of a tree, rocks and a soap bubble.
a bronze pendant in the shape of a birch leaf
Here's a #pendant I made from #bronze #metalclay recently, based on a birch leaf I photographed out in Saskatchewan, featuring an image I created from #photographs of a #tree, rocks and a soap bubble.
A photo of a leaf, with an image and a glass cabochon superimposed on it.
Finally going through some #photos of #leaves I took in the summer out in Saskatchewan - I was trying to find ones that were the right shape for some glass cabochons I bought - at least one of them turned out pretty well - this will be my next #3dmodeling project!
Usually there's a way to adjust the formatting based on the screen width - what's called a responsive design... but it also might not be worth the effort - this works fine on a wider screen...
They look nice - but quite a bit more $$$ than I was hoping to spend...
a shattered version of a pendant in metal clay, along with the two halves of a mold that created it.
a digital mockup of a 'wireframe' butterfly pendant...
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice... My second, 'improved' attempt to make a mold that would let me create the 'wireframe' butterfly #pendant from #metalclay failed - the clay shattered when demolding. Not sure yet if there will be a third attempt...
Looking for an #ebike in Canada seems hard! Most of the well-reviewed one are either not available or super expensive. Just looking for something relatively light (<23kg) and not stupidly expensive... Only found the davinci e-milano so far...
I've seen far worse layouts for a webpage... headers/sections might be nice. It might be because I'm a freak who mostly interacts with the web on a large screen, but a two-column option for wider screens might also be nice.
