Commentary on Finished Tiles

This is a commentary on the twenty tiles I made:

1. For the etchings, in general I feel they went well, but it is hard to get a clean line using asphaltum.  PnP paper seems to be the easiest way to get such crispness, but since I prefer working traditionally as possible, I am reluctant to throw in the towel to a printer.  But I cannot help but wonder if the graininess of the asphaltum etching is why the old etchers back in the day (Albrecht Duhrer comes to mind) using cross-hatching to make their images.
2. Chasing and repousse is a fun technique, and one I aim to explore more deeply.
3. In general, the inlays were tough.  Solder inlay requires more cleanup than I like, lamination inlay distorts an image (this can be minimized depending on how you do it - note, minimized), and marriage of metal (aka puzzle inlay) is a pain to get a good fit with no gaps.  I imagine solder inlay will be useful in the future, and as much a pain as matrriage of metal is, I am sure I will continue using them.  Marriage of metal is a challenge to be overcome.
4. Foldforming had a better result than I expected.  But I would not use it extensively.  I would rather etch or make a ring.

For my own tiles, if I were to do anything differently, I would have aged the shiny ones so that they better matched each other.  My idea was that these tiles would have decorated a section of wall in some ancient Persian palace; ultimately, the look of my tiles was divided between past and present.  This did not occur to me until the end.

They will age naturally; this is good, because I am frankly concerned about dismounting them.  They are fixed with Liquid Nails - I really do not want to tear apart the tile that they sit on.  And for that matter, I like the idea of them aging naturally.  It lends a certain sense of authenticity to them.

The one tile that received the harshest criticism - and I was on the fence about including it for this very reason - was the one tile which I did not fabricate in the traditional sense.  It was a piece of copper, which through combination of heating, liver of sulfur aging solution, and an interesting swirly pattern made by a power sander, ended up with a very unique look.  It was iridescent blue and purple and the sanding texture gave it an almost glassy feel to it; the copper was still visible beneath the patina, making it very three-dimensional.  It remined me of Babylonian tile.

To some it was "just a piece of copper".  But I thought it was special enough to include.

Ultimately the whole project was a learning experience for me; I enjoyed it, and it taught me a lot about how I would go about the process if I were to do it again.  There are many things I would do differently, now that I actually have some experience with the project.  But for this project, it did not need to be perfect, and I was not aiming for perfection.  The best that I could do, but not perfection.  That would be impossible, having no knowledge of the techniques that I was doing.  That said I am pleased with the results, and I see no need to revisit my tiles.

For reference again:

It could be brighter an image (on the right side), but such is life.

Wax Studies

Because I forgot to document my earlier waxes, I made sure to document these.  All are for the Skeleton to Skin project.

Finished Tiles

Here are the photos of my finished project.  I am proud of how it turned out; I actually ended with twenty-one tiles, but one of the tiles I was dissatisfied with.

This is the unfortunate tile, a scene of Ahriman trying to steal the Ring of Sovereignty.  It was etched and patinaid.

All the tiles together.  It seems two of them are hard to see.  Closeups will follow.

All completed, and I am happy with the results.  They say a magician never reveals his secrets; I may not be a magician, but I like that policy anyway.

Story Project

The next project that I am to be working on is to be based around a narrative, and it is to have a flange.  Here are the two spider charts for my main ideas.

They do not look very large, but they say big things come in small packages.  I have quite the narrative in mind.

New York Times Monday March 7, 2011 - A Libyan Leader at War With Rebels, and Reality

Speaking of the Middle-East, I have been following the goings-on over there for quite some time, especially since the Egyptian revolts.  It is a terrible thing that there is so much violence going on over there - wars upon wars upon wars, all because a few people want all the power.  It would be nice to see peace returned to the Middle-East in my lifetime, with free people in free nations.  Some wonder if this is possible; I know it is, but it will mean a whole region embracing kinship over war.  And this inevitably means that the warmongers need to be defeated.  But the little people have to act; as has been said, if the good people do nothing, evil will prevail.  The hatred and the oppression and the bloodshed will continue.

I wonder if the Western world realizes this yet?

The Long Night

So it has been some time since my last update.  The reason is, as I like to put it, "The sky fell on me."  That is what I usually say when such things happen - and by such things, I mean all sorts of things happen at once and I somehow have to deal with all of them.  Some medical, some work-related (jewelry work that is), some people related.  It has been quite the third-of-a-month.

Speaking of which, today was spent sun-up 'til sundown in the studio working.  Normally I can spread my work between home, school, and in between home and school, but the nature of the beast kept me underground all day.  That said, the good news is that over the course of the weekend I made advancements in my twenty-Persia-tiles project.  And so here is a chronological picture list.

Beginnings

I have always been fascinated with the ancient Near-East; as a child it was primarily Egypt that I knew about, watching documentaries on the History channel about such things.  Being Catholic, I also knew of Israel; but it was not until recently that I started to learn more about the interconnectdness of all of them, and it was actually through a story - Prince of Persia, the one released 2008 - that I started to get more interested in Persian history.  The most influential designs came from these pictures.  There were others, but these three were the most important, imagery-wise.

Unfortunately I do not remember where I found these images; please note that I do not own them.



Design

Ancient Persia has a rich and complex mythology.  Perhaps one of the best examples of its mythology is Zoroastrianism, a forerunner of Judaism and Christianity, and named after its prophet, Zoroaster.  As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, his proper name was probably Zarathustra; Zoroaster is likely a Hellenization.  Zoroastrianism was a religion that clearly emphasized the difference between Good and Evil forces, and Zarathustra was keen on ending the paganism he saw around him, considering all gods but Ormazd to be servants of the evil Ahriman.  Note that Ormazd did have servants of his own - the sx Immortals, among others.  Sounds quite a bit like God and His angels arrayed against Satan and his Legion.



Onward

The actual work aspect of the project has been (as hopefully expected) the most challenging piece of the puzzle.  I started with etching; I have been etching at home, and I am glad I did that.  It has taken my etching far longer than the 1-2 hours that it should be taking.  More like 5.  Why so long, I do not know; perhaps it is just I am going for a deeper etch than other people.

Tiles post etching.

Tiles ready to be etched for rollerprinting.

Completed tiles.  The Top Right tile of the second picture has been etched and solder inlaid in the eyeys and nose.  Many of these have been patinaid with Liver of Sulfur

Etched and Solder Inlay.  Not complete; after his eye is finished being sanded he will be patinaid like the others.

Rollerprinting

Rollerprinting is a relatively quick, easy, and painless process.  It might take a few tries to get right, but each try is a sneeze considering the amount of work it takes for other jewelry processes.  About the most involved thing one has to do might be a bit of annealing afterwards.  This is why, when two of my other designs failed (miserably, I might add) I replaced them with rollerprints.  I had originally intended three first-tier rollerprints and two second-tier rollerprints, but I ended up with five first-tier.

First-tier:       when one uses a found object to create a rollerprint - straight from object to copper.

Second-tier:  a rollerprint that started life as another jewelry process - I.E. a pattern cut out of a

                     brass sheet that is rolled over a sheet of copper to produce the final product.

My two second-tier rollerpints will come from these tiles after they are etched:

The First One

Indeed, this was the very first tile I made, shown here before it was fully done.

Left: the 'maquette'

Right: the finished First One

Three tries at another rollerprint.  The far left was the one I ended up using.

The five finished first-tier rollerprints.  All but the First One (bottomm right) also have a hammer texture.

Inlay
These two tiles have proven to be nothing but trouble.  On the left we have the unfinished lamination inlay; on the right, the unfinished 'puzzle' inlay.  Both are horrendous tasks.  The puzzle was a failure three times in a row before it came to the form in the picture below; my first time around it melted halfway.  Part of the lamination inlay melted as well.  I had to fill holes in my puzzle inlay's silver flame.  Hopefully when I grind it all down it will be all right; for now, it's a mess.  I do not foresee myself ever using that puzzle technique.  But those are often famous last words.

The solder inlay was challenging too, but it was a much easier inlay to get straight by simply dogging on.  The othetr two, not so much.  There is just something about inlay that seems to be tough.

The Road Goes Ever On
As Tolkien's famous Hobbit once said, the Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.  I have finished a number of tiles, but there are more to be done.  A chasing and repousse, finishing up my brass etches and their accompanying rollerprints, and the two inlay tiles above.  A total of twelve tiles finished as of now, and eight in the works.  Most of those eight are almost done, but for some grunt work.  Hopefully it will all turn out; the next post on the subject will be a post of the finished product.

Sidenote: I have been documenting my work for this tile project, but I also did some investing today.  Casting-investing, not money-investing.  It just occured to me that I forgot to take pictures of my three models before I invested them; ah well, such is life I suppose.  I can only hope the cast turns out; I also hope I invested it properly.  I did it all by hand, following the McCreight book's directions on the subject, as I did not know how to use the machine.  Hopefully....well, hopefully it will all turn out, as I have said multiple times.  A lot is up in the air right now concerning this sort of thing.