The process of my electroforming- techniques

So there are lots of chemicals, lots of science and a whole lot more. So I started out with tech's rectifier which is normally used to electro plate. I did not do science at school so this has been quite a challenge as I did not even know that somwthing called a cathode and anode even existed. I mixed up my electro bath chemicals, got my object lackered and then painted with copper dust to make it conductive and started the whole process. But the process never started as I could not get any amps on the amp meter, I could only get vaults. After sitting on the couch hoping things would some how get better, I phoned my dad to ask what the solution was but the only thing he could think of was to tell me to check if there was current in both the negative and positive conductors. After a whole lot of experimenting on possible reasons why the rectifyer did not have any amps. I by chance tried adding another piece of copper from the cathode to the actual object I was electroforming and the amps shot up! I was so delighted! obviously there was not enough connection. I then ended up setting the amps to 2 amps and I completely burnt the flower causing it to get balls of copper on it that flaked off.

Copper conductive dust

The rectifier I am using

electro bath- becareful!

Conductive flower

Wait and see.......

The viability of my work?

wow big word... at the moment my greatest point of interest or concern (I dont like that word as i feel it brings a negativity to the issue) is how can I make jewellery that is sellable but still has my own hand made delicate feel in it that my work has at the moment. I feel like I need to create work that looks very delicate just like my hydrangeas do but is not really that delicate when handling it. I dont even know if it is possible because as soon as I start adding more thickness to metal it changes the feel of my flower. one of the main characteristics I focus on in the hydrangea flower is the delicacy of the veins and the thinness of the petals. I feel like I will sell these pieces of jewellery more if they were not so delicate but then I would be changing my jewellery and the designs that make my jewellery mine. ????

Other Jewellers that have used electroformimg

I am in the process of designing and trying to make a ring with a setting out of wax and then electroforming it but I have no idea how it will work. I have just seen on carrot box a lady who has been electroforming objects to make rings etc. look at the link below http://olgakosica.com/index.php/photos/album/25/photo/363.html
one of her rings with a setting is similar to what I am busy doing.

electroforming process- technique

The first electro forming I did was where I was taught by Kirsten at her and her dads workshop where she showed me their process of how they electro formed shoes for their business and she helped me elecrto form some leaves and flowers. I had prepared my very dried out hydrangea flower by dipping it in lacka (spelling?) and letting it dry as you can see below. I had already attached the copper wire to it making it part of the flowers conductor.

I love the crinkled up edges of a dried hydrangea! each flower has its own character as they each take a different shape when they dry.

Next I had to cover all the surface area of my hydrangea with conductive copper dust which can only be bought in KG's so Kirsten kindly gave me some! The flowers look so pretty in the copper paint! The sinker is to weigh the flower down so it does not float in the electroforming bath.

Now we had to wait to for it to dry..................

Electro-Forming- Technique

Iv tried casting, I'v tried making by hand and now I am on a new discovery of trying electro-forming! Just like electro-plating where you take a conductive object and you plate it with another metal using anodes and cathodes and positives and negatives ..... (I did not do science!!) But this is the tricky part, I am taking an organic object that has nothing conductive in it and i am copper plating it so it is actually being formed into metal by creating a metal cover over its outside, and what happens to the inside I donot know but am going to find out along the way!

A very lovely lady Kirsten has been extremely helpful by starting me off and teaching me a few things (alot of things) and even letting me use her electro bath and chemicals to help me start off my electro forming flowers. Her dad and her have a "Baby shoe" bronzing business and they have been sooo kind and helpful.

I have come across many challenges already and have not even properly started yet. It has been the most challenging process I have tried for my research so far just in terms of finding out scientific "stuff", having the guts to phone people I don't know and to ask questions and use equipment that is owned by someone else and then also trying to source products that come in kilograms when I need less than one thenth of that, but I was so greatful to find people that were so willing to help me.

So the next at least month is going to be some extensive testing and documenting to try and explore electro forming as much as I can. at the moment my only set back is that I need to get Plascon thinners and they only sell it in 10 leters and I need a cup of it! :)

today my challenge is to find out the ratio of copper sulphate to acid to water for a 1l beaker and not a 95 l bath. I have to do the math!! and I need to get that thinners!! And to start my first batch of electro plating at home!

This is what happens when the electric roller is hungry

Please be careful kids. Don't try this at home!
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The difference between my cast hydrangeas and my hand made ones

My cast hydrangeas ( that i cast in march) show the veins in the flower well in silver. I had to find a way of creating these veins in the silves. so i took a sharp skelpel blade and started off with that. It turned out that the back of the hydrangea looked more beautiful than the front as the veins stuck out at the back and were imprinted in the front. The cast hydrangeas. I am still going to try electroplating the hydrangea flower.

Hand made hydrangea, the back of it where the veins stick out.

My reference

A hydrangea neck piece in the making

NSA jewellery on show

Tomorrow we exhibit our jewellery in 2 big show cases at the NSA art Gallery . After a very long discussion at tech on thursday morning about how 10 of us B tech students would show our work together and somehow get each student who is desiginning their own jewellery to look good as a whole, I have decided to use white perspex and to put my work on that. I will have to see how it intigrates with every one else's displays tomorrow.

I created some of my hydrangea range for this exhibition: (thumb nail size for now)

NSA exhibition

My neck piece is in the making but not in the soldering stage! There are so many options I could go with! I am going to have to speed production up in order to keep my designs turning into a jewellery state
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New ideas

Simple idea but I have not tried it yet. I want to create a lot of different shanks that will have from 1 to very many hydrangeas on them. I better get cracking!
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Using different parts of flowers

I was watching a video by Nora Fok on Michelle pujols blog and found it fascinating how Nora creates this amazing neck piece/ work of art by using a protea that she takes seeds out of the protea from the inside and creates this amazing piece using these seeds.

I think I need to start taking detailed bits of flowers and different aspects of a flower how Nora has done instead of taking the flower as a whole and recreating it or something that looks like it. here is the link to see what i am talking about ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKGpsY8dNdQ&feature=player_embedded or http://michellepujol.blogspot.com/

The flowers on the walk way near moses Mabida

I thought these flowers on the tiles of the walkway were great! They are found under the bridge when you walk from the stadium to the beach. A "long term" goal ( I am too busy with my hydrangeas at the moment) is too incorporate a truly south African flower into my jewellery! I'm keeping these ideas in my journal!
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Starting my hydrangea neck piece for NSA exhibition!

I have started creating my hydrangea flowers by hand and am going to be creating a few pieces of hydrangea jewellery for the NSA exhibition!
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Beautiful work done by the goldensmith

I absolutely love the goldensmith's blog and work. His piece of jewellery called silver dust fusion just shows that plants don't have to be cast inorder to make them look more realistic in silver, they can look even better if made by your hands. look this link to see whati am talking about http://thegoldensmith.blogspot.com/2010/05/silver-dust-fusion.html

Sand casting

We had a sand casting workshop at tech. I thought it would be a good idea to try cast an organic article. When I was cooking at my sisters house I came across some beautiful looking anni seeds which had a funny type of smell almost a liquorice smell. I thought I would try it out. Here is a bit of the process.

Above: A fire is beign made with coal, wood and paper to create a hot enough flame to melt the metal, which is in the crucibal, which is in the flames. the funny looking machine (top photo in the middle of the photo) blows oxygen into the fire which creates a hotter flame. The machine only blows air onto the fire when its handle is being turned.

Below are the the seeds I found to sand cast

Pressing the seed into the sand to make a mold. There were a few undercuts on the seed that caused a bit of the sand to move when it was being lifted out.

After the seed has been cast. It came out nicely in its own way but was not a perfect casting. The seed is a bit complecated in terms of its form to be able to cast perfectly.

My vetkat jewellery on display!

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My finished Vet Kat jewellery

Vet Kat castings

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Green theme

We have had a vet kat exhibition where we were to design jewellery around the drawings of the bushmen vet kat. I used one of his flowers and created my own vet kat flowers out of bees wax which i then cast. These pieces I used for my green theme as I was busy with this chapter when we were given news about this exhibition. A bit of my process is above...

Green project

Im back! I have not been gone, I have been working in my journal!
So what I have been working on for the last 2 months is lots of different bits and pieces but I have decided I need to pick an area to work with and stick to it for a while! Just so turns out that what I was doing for my fashion chapter ties into my green theme completely. I am going to use flowers in my jewellery like i have been to create awareness of the environment.

Fashion chapter report

For this chapter I did a lot of experimenting with casting real flowers. I started off the chapter feeling unsure of what area I wanted to go into in terms of furthering my flower designs from the splash project, where my neck piece had come out unrefined and vague and did not show a true representation of the actual flower.

I have started taking the actual flower and casting it, to capture the intricate detail that I looked over in the last few pieces of jewellery I have created this year. I am focusing on individual flowers and not flowers in a group.

What I learnt in a big way is that I need to take my mind off the finished product because it cancels out so much design options and exploration that needs to be done before I finish the piece of jewellery.

I will be able to create jewellery from these elements I have because I feel like I have got enough subject matter to actually start putting pieces of jewellery together.

My next step is to try creating flowers with the same detail but by doing it by hand with chasing punches.

Look what I found!

I just found my very own petria plant in my complex
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My fern castings

There is always an element of surprise in casting! You are never quite sure how it will come out but I am happy with the way my bits of plant and flowers cast! Bit of a bad photo but one can see what I am talking about!
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Alidra Alic

Here is another jeweller who creates beautiful orchid jewellery. I cannot tell whether her jewellery is cast but the detail on the orchid is beautiful. She also uses a plastic on her pieces that adds colour to them. Take a look:
http://www.klimt02.net/jewellers/index.php?item_id=7506

Other jewellers who have used flowers

As it would turn out some where someone has always tried out the idea you had in your head that you thought was unique and original! I found a man who casts beautiful flowers, including orchids! Wow they are lovely! Here is his link http://www.nicbladen.com/ . His name is Nic Bladen.
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Cast orchid

I am so pleased with the result of my cast orchid! I am very excited to put a touch of enamel on it! I need to start thinking how to create this into a unique piece of jewellery! I am going to research other jewellers that have flowers in their work. I far prefer this cast orchid to the other 2 I created by hand at the beginning of the year. I enjoy how it looks and feels as if it was real before it was changed into silver! I am so excited to see what else I can cast from the garden to create elements for jewellery!
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The orchid

I was looking up the meaning of an orchid and there were 3 common meanings: beauty, refinement and love!
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Casting my orchid

When getting changed to go out one evening I noticed my mom's orchid in her bath room and ever since then I have wanted to create an orchid for my hair to clip in! I think they are the most beautiful flower and their colours are so tastefully put together! Marlene was very kind an d bought me one of her orchid flowers that had fallen off her orchid and I decided to cast it!
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A bit of my process

I made wax sprues to attach the fern to the button where the silver will run in, in order to cast the fern.
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flowers to cast

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flowers to cast

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Trying the real thing

For the last 2 years I have made flowers out of silver and using my own templates and I am tired of doing this for now so I have decided to try casting the real flower to get a more accurate feeling of nature in my jewellery. So here are some of my photo's of the plants I want to cast!
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Earrings using fern design

I decided to make this pair of earrings with a oval shape. They are slightly different from each other and I like creating earrings like this, where each earring is not identical. If you look at flowers or leaves from the same plant they all look the same, nut if you look closely at each individual flower or leaf, they are all unique with slight differences. I am going to create a few earrings with this fern shape that each earring will be different.





Here are the earrings.......

more cut outs

Check out this blog site, the paper cut outs of leaves have the same feeling of my fern that is growing out of the metal! These leaves ahve been cut out of the paper but are still atached to the paper. interesting!http://www.paperphine.com/