Rough Rocks, Minerals & Crystals

Good news for all Crafters and Artisans in the Stamford Lincolnshire area, the Stamford Artisans Guild has announced their confirmed craft fair show dates for 2010. The shows detailed below will be held in the Stamford Arts Centre right in the heart of Stamford. You will find all manner of crafts on display varying from Glass Work, Lapidary, Jewellery, Floristry, Wood Work and many other crfats utilising a great deal of diverse skills all practiced by the Artsians and Crafters themselves.

The show dates are:

16 May 2010

25 July 2010

26 September 2010

5 December 2010

These shows will be held in the Stamford Arts Centre.

What makes these shows especially unique is that all items on display have been made by the crafters themselves so if you have questions you can ask the pesron on the stall and you will be sure to get a knowledgable answer. You will not find any ready made imported items at these shows, unlike many craft fairs, everything you will see here is uniquely hand crafted by the seller. What better place to find a one of a kind unique item.

The event last Christmas was absolutely buzzing all day, there were lots of visitors and it was good to observe the many conversations going on between the crafters and vistors and most of comments like “what a refreshing change it is to visit a proper craft show”.

For more information on these shows please visit the blog at:

http://www.stamfordartisansguild.co.uk/craft-events-diary/

For more information about the Guild and its activities, a good place to start is there home page:

http://www.stamfordartisansguild.co.uk/

For information about workshops being run by Guild members there is a dedicated page here:

http://www.stamfordartisansguild.co.uk/craft-workshops-by-guild-members/

A few people have asked me how I make these wire tree sculptures so I thought I should write a brief how to here on the blog, however, I must say right from the start I am not going to reveal all of the techniques I have from learnt Sal Villano’s “How To” book, to get the full instruction you should go and buy his book on line which you can do here:

http://www.salvillano.com/id12.htm

I am in no way making any money out of drawing your attention to Sal’s book, it’s just my way of saying thanks to Sal for providing me with first the inspiration to learn this craft and second for providing me with the knowledge to pursue this art form.

Ok so lets dive in at the start, in this first picture you can see a block of wood with some nails in it, a roll of wire and my cutters, these are essentially all the tools you need to get started.

Now we will get the wire attached onto the jig, simply do this by wrapping the end of the wire around one of the nails a few times, I have found that if your wrap it from the top of the nail towards the bottom it makes life easier (you will se why later), make sure you leave a 2 to 3 inch tail of wire which you can tuck out of the way under the wooden block.

Next step is to start wrapping the wire around the nails, it doesn’t matter which direction you go in but make sure you keep count of how many wraps you are making

Continue wrapping your wire around the nails until you have say 40 complete wraps, before cutting your wire leave a good 2 to 3 inches extra and then make your cut. This is the first of only 3 cuts you will make during the whole process! Remember the flying end you tucked under the wooden block, now get hold of that and gently unwrap it from the nail.
Now you should have something looking like the picture below, the wire wrapped around the nails with two flying ends of wire

Now wrap one of your flying wire ends around the whole bunch about an inch or so away from the nail, wrap this as tight as you can,

Now wrap your other flying end over the wrap you just made, the purpose of this is to hold the bunch together when you take it off the nails, otherwise it just springs off and you could end up with something resembling a rat’s nest!

It’s time to take the whole bunch off the nails, take it easy and gently get the much off the middle nail first, this allows a little slack so you can get it over one of the end nails. Hopefully it will look like the picture below.

The next step is to gently shape it into an oval, trying to get as much of the creasing out of the wire as you can which was formed when it was wrapped around the nails.

Time for the second cut, well this will be many cuts depending on how many wraps you made around the nails, look at the picture below, I am going to cut the wire where the tip of the pencil is pointing to

Make your cuts slowly, don’t try to cut too many wires at one time because this will damage your cutters, once you have cut through all the wires you should have something like the picture below

Carefully straighten your bunch of wires out now, don’t pull on them to much as you might start pulling individual wires out of the bunch

Time to grab your roll of wire again, start wrapping right next to the wrap you did earlier and wrap along the bunch away from the first wrap you did earlier just before taking the sire off the nails, I carry on wrapping the wire tightly for about an inch and then start wrapping back down, going over what I have just done, keep going until you get the end of the very first wrap you did.

Now the fun start, it’s time to start forming the roots, let you imagination run wild as this is nature you are trying to replicate so there is no set way that roots grow, but as you can see from the picture below I have separated a bunch of wire from the main bunch to form the first root. Now grab your roll of wire and start wrapping along the length of this root until you get about half way, then again separate the bunch of wires into two bunches and continue wrapping along the length of one of these new bunches. When you get near to the end, separate the wires in the bunch to create a V now bring your wire through this V and start wrapping back over the wraps you have already done. When you reach the other bunch of wires start wrapping along them just the same as you have just done, once you have wrapped along this bunch back to where you started continue wrapping all the way back along the root until you get to it’s base.

Continue doing what you have been doing until you have a root formation along the lines of that shown below

Now start wrapping up the trunk for a couple of inches or so and then you can start to form the branches, this is similar to making the roots,

you just separate out dome of the wire and start to wrap along it, separating and wrapping along the way and then back again. This is where your imagination comes into play big time, just let it run wild and guide you as you form your tree.

As I said right at the start, I have given you the basics of how to make your wire sculpted tree, however, to learn the techniques properly please go and buy Sal’s “How To” book where everything is explained in much greater details and also a lot of techniques I haven’t covered here. You can get the book here:

http://www.salvillano.com/id12.htm

With the basics I have shown here and the techniques you will learn from Sal’s book, it won’t be long before you are creating beautiful wire tree sculptures like the one below. Yes this is the tree we have been making through the process of writing this post, there is still some work to do on it yet but it gives you an idea of what can be achieved.

If this has captured your interest you can see more of oru wire tree sculptures in Shalini’s showroom:

http://www.jewellerybyshalini.co.uk/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=catshow&ref=wire_sculpture

Enjoy

Dave

At last my first Bonsai tree wire sculpture is completed, this tree is made from 0.40mm bare copper wire, completely hand wound from start to finish, using only a wire cutter, hammer and jewellers anvil to complete the project.

The wire sculpture took approximately 10 hours to complete from star to finish, perhaps the most difficult part is hammering the end of the wire twigs flat to form the leaves, because space can because quite tight with so many leaves all being is a very confined space.

Once the leaves had been formed I mounted the tree in the small bowl, the bowl was filled with a gravel and PVA glue mixture and the mound under the roots was formed at the same time. Once this was dry the tree was mounted with small amounts of epoxy at the end of the roots and then the mound was build up with sand and finally once dry it was dyed with Indian ink.

The final finishing touch was applied after everything else had been done and that was to paint both sides of each leaf using green acrylic enamel paint.

Because this wire sculpture has been created out of bare copper wire, over time it will change colour over time, changing to a brownish colour and then finally after a considerable time this Patina will start to turn to a lighter green, so you will be able to observe the tree changing over time, all thanks to nature.

The wire sculpture tree is approximately 17cm high with a spread of 22 x 15 cm, making it an ideal display for an executive’s desktop or show cabinet.

This wire sculpture of a Bonsai tree is now on sale through the Jewellery by Shalini Showroom, he is a direct link to the item:

http://www.jewellerybyshalini.co.uk/gbu0-prodshow/T10.html

Best regards

Dave

We have now finished the second and third of our wire sculpted gem trees, they have both been adorned with rose quartz chips on the branches.

Tree number 2 is mounted on a slab of rock and the sand has been dyed with indian ink to give the effect of grass and moss.

This Rose Quartz gem tree is now availabkle to purchase through Shalini’s Jewellery showroom by following this link:
http://www.jewellerybyshalini.co.uk/gbu0-prodshow/T2.html

Wire sculpture tree number 3, was more challenging because we mounted it on a flint nodule, the challenge was in getting the glue not to run off the flint as we tried to stick the sand onto it, again this one has had the sand dyed with Indian ink to give the effect of grass growing around the roots.

This wire sulptured gem tree is avaiable for purchase through the Jewellery By Shalini showroom, here is a direct link:
http://www.jewellerybyshalini.co.uk/gbu0-prodshow/T3.html

Well we have finished the first of the wire tree sculptures and we are pleased with the result, so is the recipient as we have it to my youngest daughter for her birthday yesterday.

As you can see from the picture we applied more colour to the base using Indian ink, although the yellow hasn’t taken too well on top of the green, need to look into this further, maybe I am doing something wrong here!

After the ink was completely dry, Shalini took over and added the Amethyst beads to the branches which really finishes the tree off nicely.

We now have several wire tree sculptures on the go and Shalini is experimenting with very fine wire which is really looking very good.

Enjoy

Dave

Well the the three wire sculpted trees are now in various stages of production, trees 1 and 2 are now firmly secured to their bases and the sand layers are fully dry on the base. Both of these trees have had their sand bases dyed with indian ink to bring out the texture of the sand.

Tree 1

Tree 2

Tree 3 has now been wrapped and secured to its base, I used a lump of flint for this one, the next stages now will be to build up the layers of sand around the roots and trunk.

Tree 3

Tree’s 1 and 2 now need more colour applying to the sans on the bases and then we need to figure out which style of tree they are going to become. Tree 3 still has quite a way to go yet as there are quite a few layers of sand that need to be secured to build up the texture arond the trunk and roots.

More to follow

Best

Dave

I am sorry I haven’t made a post for a while, I have been suffering with a prolonged head and chest cold which has been going on for over a month, gladly it appears to be getting better now.

Also, because of the very cold winter we have endured this year it just has been far too cold to go out into the Lapidary workshop, even the wood burning stove couldn’t cope with the sub zero temperatures so nothing has happened out there at all this winter so far.

I am one of those people who cannot sit idle for long so I had to find something t keep me occupied and I went in search of ideas. As you know I had a dabble with a gem tree a while back so I thought it would be good to expand on that idea and as a result I found a fantastic site which is written by the artist Sal Villano, his site can be found here:

http://www.salvillano.com

His work is really wonderful and the finished product is so realistic to look at, all manner of trees from Willows to Bonsai’s, but the real appeal of his work is how he mounts them in sea sand and the uses Indian ink to create an effect that makes the trees look like they are growing out of moss.

I was bitten, I just had to learn more about how he makes these wonderful wire wrapped tree sculptures, and fortunately he has a downloadable book which at only $9 is wonderful value. The content and instructions are really well written and it’s fully illustrated with working drawings so you really can’t go wrong at any step.

So far I have three trees at various stages of construction and they are starting to look good. The beauty of making these is that once you have mastered the basics, you can really let your creative juices flow.

Here are pictures of the three so far in various stages of production:

The first is mounted an a small flat pebble, I followed Sal’s instruction to use sticky tape to stick the branches to the deges of the dish, I found this quite fiddly to do. I am waiting for the glue to dry which holds the sand.

The second is mounted on a slab of rock, I got more creative with this one and made the roots longer than the first and I decided to try using small dabs of epoxy to hold the tree to the base instead of using sticky tape, it seems to have worked and is much less fiddly.

The third tree, well this one has only just been started, the root structure has been formed now I need to wrap up the trunk and get the branches formed. I really have no idea how this one will turn out because they sort of gorw their own shape as wrapping progresses.

I will post more pictures of these 3 wire trees as they progress.

I would advise anyone who has found this interesting to visit Sal’s web site and have a good look around and buy his little book to help get you off the ground with this art form, you won’t be sorry I am sure!

All the best

Dave

A while ago I started learning how to make gem stone crosses, at times it was frustrating and there were a few casualties along the way.

In a previous post I described how we cut the crosses out of green Aventurine, since then we cut some more out Orange Aventurine, Rose Quartz, Sodalite and Lapis Lazuli, just to get the feel for using different materials for making crosses.

One thing I did learn was to use smaller tools for this type of work, the expanding drums on the cab machine are too harsh, so as it turned out was the felt polishing wheel.

So I used small felt bobs mounted in the Fordom Flex shaft to sand and polish these pieces, for the sanding I used progressive grades of diamond paste on the felt bobs then finished off with cerium oxide as a polish.

As I said there were a few casualties along the way, the first happened a while back before I figured out to use the felt bobs as the one below fractured on the felt polishing wheel.

The second one fractured when I was trying to drill a hole for a jump ring to go through, Rose Quartz seems to be very fragile in this type of work, but it’s more than likely just me.

Anyway those that survived are below, I know they could be better but that’s what learning is all about and you don’t learn if you don’t try!

I will do more of these when time allows and I am sure the next batch will be much better.

All the best

Dave

I have been wondering for a while about what I can do with all these tumble stones that we have, mainly the ones that are too small for jewellery or not good enough for jewellery.

So I decided to have a go at making a gem tree out of some Amethyst tumble stones.

First of all I found an end piece of Amethyst left over from a lump that had been slabed, a nice flat face on one side to serve as the base and rough on top, then I “borrowed” some of Shalini’s silver plated copper wire, 0.8mm, to make the tree out of.

As you can see I cut 12 lengths of the wire, six being shorter than the other six and left about 2 inches protruding at the bottom before I started to wrap the trunk.

One I had wrapped the trunk, I splayed the shorter bits at the end so they would go over the rough top of the base slab, after much bending a poking about to get the “roots” sitting on the slab properly I then used Devcon Epoxy to glue it in place, I used too much of this and it ended up a bit messy, read on to see how I hid this.

Next I selected the tumble stones that I wanted to use and started to attach them onto the branches, I found that by making a large loop at the end of the branch and then tightening the loop around the stone, it would stay in place while it was glued with the epoxy.

Now I had to go and hide the mess I made at the bottom, this was easily done using small tumble stones glued into place.

As I said this is the first attempt and I hade to figure out how to do it as I went along and I learnt much for the next time and there will be a next time because we have so many tumble stones to use up. Actually I am quite pleased at the finished item.

I wrote a short post recently about the Stamford Artisans Guild, now I am reporting back on the recent Christmas Craft Fair that was held on the 6th December in the Stamford Arts Centre.

The show was organised by my wife Shalini and three other ladies, Lorna, Sharon and Amanda, they put lots of effort into the organisation and publicity off the fair, and it paid off big time.

At the outset, there was very strict criteria laid down for who could take part, notably, everything had to be hand made by the person who was exhibiting and they had to based in Stamford or within a 25 mile radius, although there were a few people who were there from further afield.

The Arts Centre was full, they sold 31 stalls to various crafters covering all manner of skills from jewellery, wood turners, photographers and of course me with my lapidary.

Shalini was even approached a few days before the event by BBC Radio Lincolnshire for an interview about the Fair. The interview was conducted over the phone and Shalini did en excellent job of describing the Guild and its aims.

Everyone arrived around 8AM to start setting up and the doors were due to open to the public at 10AM, but because of the great job they did of publicising the event, members of the public started coming at 9:30AM, people were still putting the finishing touches to their stalls.

During the day their was a steady flow of visitors, I have no idea how many there actually were, but the whole place was buzzing throughout the day and all stall holders were very happy at the end of the day, a good level of sales was achieved and many good contact were made by almost everyone involved.

The organisers had requested the Arts Centre café to open on the day, normally they are closed on Sunday’s, anyway the Café was sold out by 2:30PM such was the level of demand for refreshments and food.

The event closed at 4PM officially, but even as everyone was packing up there will still visitors coming in which was great.

If you would like to learn more about the Stamford Artisans Guild or its activities to date please visit their web site at:

http://www.stamfordartisansguild.co.uk/

All the best

Dave