Bang banging away....Repousse.

As pitch is nasty stuff and not very green at all, i tried different ways of using the idea of repousse.  My intention here was to create the intaglio effect without using a pitch bowl. I tried a stamp system to create the larger more protruding veins and then chased on a scrap piece of pine wood for the more delicate veins. 

 It sort of worked but my silver kept buckling, as there was nothing to support it.

Sustainable Casting....

Cuttlefish cast leaf-test piece. 

sand cast bronze leaf- test piece

Generally casting is used to reproduce delicate or intricate designs or for mass producing a design. Neither of these desired affects can be satisfied through either of these primitive techniques of casting. Sand and Cuttlefish casting are two techniques of primitive casting that are resource minimal, energy saving and pollution free. Bonus with these techniques is that they leave a unusual  beautifully rough finish to your piece (particularly cuttlefish casting) therefore minimal cleaning up is required (further sustainable). They also add an element of surprise, as you never know exactly how the cast will turn out.

Forging out some plate....

In primitive times plate was made by forging out a melted plate. I gave it a try....I cuttlefish cast a square of 29mm X 35mm.  I thought it would be a long process, it took 28minutes to forge it down from 2.2mm to .6mm (the thickness i most often work with) and stretched to 54mm X 63mm. The result of it was a textured plate, rather happy with that. Cold most definately use this process- and it would result in a seriously strong right arm :)