PB Cohen Creations

Casting went reasonably well on Thursday. Be sure to click on this one to embiggen, because then you'll see all the things that went wrong. But first, you'll probably notice that this collection of cast items looks pretty awful.

The white stuff is the bits of investment (a jeweler's version of Plaster of Paris) that I haven't cleaned off yet. The black stuff — believe it or not — is sterling silver. A nice soak in a warm acid bath should take care of most of both of those issues, and a good scrub will take care of the rest.

Additional problems: 1) the button (base of the casting) is bigger than it needs to be, which is a waste of silver (don't worry, I'll recycle that). 2) I lost parts of — and in one case all of — the seed pods that were sticking out of the now mostly empty sprues. 3) There are tiny little air bubbles (um, investment bubbles?) everywhere, which of course turned into bubbles of silver. Including one on the bird's beak, of all places! I'm sure my instructor will have a few other ideas about things that I could do better next time, as well.

But overall, considering the enormous lump of investment I was pretty sure had fallen into the flask, crushing everything on its way to the bottom, I think it went pretty well. I have a discernible bird, and a distinguishable ring. Countless hours went into those waxes, so the fact that they're both intact is pretty darned good. Talk to me after I've filed away all those bubbles and I may have a different opinion, but until then, I'm pleased.

Only two more opportunities to cast during this class, so I expect I'll be busy carving for the next two weeks. But later, I'll have pics of these things finished, plus all the other things I've managed to cast.

I'm in the Ann Arbor Art Center's new marketing video. It's up on YouTube, look for me at 46 seconds.

I had just added the first sprue to my carved wax ring when the camera guys came around — one of seven sprues, plus a vent. On the other hand, the bird (from the previous entry) only took one sprue, and no vents. Easy peasy.

I like to encourage students to make more than one of anything. That way, if the first one, or two, or more, get melted or ruined beyond repair, the next one or two or three are bound to work out. For example, I'm convinced the best way to learn to solder small things is to make a chain — you WILL melt some jump rings, but by the end of the chain you'll be pretty good at it.

I have to keep reminding myself of this philosophy when I think about that bird. It took countless hours to carve. No, literally: countless hours (but at least I managed to salvage it from the mistakes I was making at the beginning of the carving process). Will it cast well? Will I like it when it's in silver? Will I want to change everything about it? Although it seemed simple enough to sprue, will it take me just as long to carve another one?

I should have those first three questions answered after I cast the waxes tomorrow (Thursday) night. The last one I can answer right now, since I'm already making more: almost as long. But theoretically, I'll get faster at it. Eventually. Once I get better at carving sculptural pieces, in three dimensions. The ring took awhile to carve, too, but it didn't seem to take as long as the bird. I'm sure I'll do more of those.

I have some more "before" pictures, plus a few on my iPhone with everything sprued (taken in a dark-ish studio, so we'll see if they're worth anything), so I'll post them all when I get the "after" pictures.

I'm taking a casting class this semester at the Ann Arbor Art Center. Many years ago I took a one-day workshop in casting, during which I learned one thing, and one thing only: wax carving is hard! (I no longer have the weird silver blob that I created that day, or I'd show it to you. I wonder what happened to that...?) So this time around, I'm concentrating on carving the wax, and casting a few things. No serious thought on what to do with the finished bits, no worries about designing around cast pieces — just the wax carving. Still working on it. This is my first attempt at carving a bird-like creature out of wax:

To be more precise, I'm doing reasonably well at carving tiny things in wax, but I'm definitely having a hard time seeing in three dimensions. This is my first time at any sort of sculpture (that I remember, anyway), so I guess I'm doing okay. But still, it's not quite right. This little fellow isn't finished, but I got stuck on the right side of the beak — which is the left side on this photo. You can click on these pictures for bigger versions, and I was hoping the extreme close-ups would help me, but they didn't. Truth is, I took away too much wax from that side, and am stuck with it. I tried adding a little blob of sticky wax there, and am currently trying to shape that, but the sticky wax doesn't really carve. It's possible a well-placed file will do the trick, but I'm not sure yet. I might try casting him in bronze (much cheaper than silver) just to see what happens. In the meantime, I've started working on a few more little wax sculptures. We'll see what happens. Slow, slow, slow. But if I can figure it out, it'll be fun! (And now that I've stopped dreaming that I'm carving up my wrists, things are going much better!)

I keep doing birds, but I think I should try some monsters, or fantasy creatures — since if I don't get them "right" nobody will know but me! The other thing I might be able to do is cut my sculptures down the middle, to create two "halves." Sort of a bas-relief treatment. That way if the two sides don't match each other, or if the whole thing ends up too wide (two of my current problems) it won't matter.

I dropped off some of my hearts today at the Ann Arbor Art Center's Gallery Shop. I was a little surprised when I started making these last year — I never celebrate Valentine's Day myself. But they've proved to be popular with the customers, and they're fun to make.

What's so fun about them? you ask. Well, I'll tell you. First, there's the fact that they're not your perfect, shiny heart. Plus, there's the fun of putting twisted little sayings on the back. Then I get a chance to play with different textures on the front. And finally, I like to give them just a little bit of shape. All good things.

The ones at the Art Center a more on the traditional side, but I have others as well, and take requests. Look at me being in time for a little holiday!

Gallery Shop
The Art Center
117 W. Liberty Street
Ann Arbor, MI. 48104

My Esty Shop

I don't usually "do" New Years' resolutions, but I've decided on two this year. The first is to start some exercises targeted at getting my arms stronger, because lately I've really gotten into using chasing and repoussé techniques.

Of course, I also need to stop the whole Death Grip On The Punches thing, and find a better height for the table I'm working on. But I also figure I'd better get some hand strength, and upper body strength if I'm going to continue whacking metal for a few hours at a time.

My second resolution is to eat more artisanal cheeses. Just because.

I will not show a photo of my bench, in part because I do a lot of work away from home, and in part because my personal space is way too messy to even work on right now. So sad. Part of that I can blame on photography, as I am ONCE AGAIN trying to solve that puzzle. Siiiiiiiiigh. But I can't blame all of it on the collection of five (5) lamps currently gathered around the light box (with one more about to be corralled into the fight). Mostly, I just can't seem to get myself organized these days. Too bad I'm the kind of person who appreciates a relatively clean surface on which to work.

Still, I take pretty good care of tools, and tend to put them away when I'm finished using them. Except for four general types of tools, which I use often enough (and because I'm a lazy slug) to just leave out all the time:

1) A ruler, obviously. I have a six-inch (15.24 centimeter) steel ruler that makes me very happy. Don't laugh at me.

2) Sawing tools, obviously, even though I bonk my head on the bench pin almost every time I add a new lamp to my Photography Command And Control Center. (Um, the power strip is under the bench.) Bench pin, saw frame, saw blades.

3) Files, obviously. Very course flat, course half round, and a half round needle file. Usually.

4) A sheet metal gauge (pictured). Yeah. This one doesn't seem obvious to me at all.

Unless, maybe, you keep watching the price of silver. Have you seen the price of silver lately? Siiiiigh. Truly, I love thick metal, but that doesn't always make sense for the piece you're working on — either the size or the technique. And I also try to use thinner metal when possible, since that makes the finished piece a little less expensive. How thick did I make that one? How thick is this one? How thick is it now? (Notice how you don't say "thin" in this context?) (Well, I don't, anyway.)

I guess I'm also a bit of a measurement geek. Our names for measurements are so arbitrary, and so interesting. (For example, the "common cubit," one of the earliest measures, was the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. Whose elbow? Whose middle finger?) Perhaps the more I measure the thickness of my metal, the neater my desk will appear?

The next few items on the list of tools that get left on the bench are just as likely to be put away, so I'll keep the official list at four. But they include, in no particular order, drafting templates with different shapes (circles, ovals, etc.), dividers, a drafting compass, and pliers of various types. I suppose pencil and paper could be included, but they're in a category I usually consider "so likely to be left out on the bench that they're invisible." Don't laugh at me.

* NOTE: Although I briefly considered trying to photograph my own gauge, I decided against it as a small step towards preserving my sanity. I'm afraid I don't remember where I found this photo, which shows what I consider to be the "back" of the gauge, since it depicts an equivalent to the B&S numbers, um, probably in inches. Hey, I don't care about inches (or millimeters, or whatever it is) when it comes to sheet metal, I care about the B&S number, which is one of three major internationally-agreed-upon standards for measuring the thickness of wire and sheet metal. Click on the image for a bigger version. And then convert 24 gauge to points — a unit for measuring type — which, since 1886, has been exactly 0.3514598 millimeters, or 1/72.27 inch. Exactly!