Metal, Paper and Wax

July 22, 2013  •  Leave a Comment

WP_20130722_006 I've always had an affinity for metal. Often, my photographs are printed directly onto a metal surface, and I frequently use rusty metal objects as the subject of my images.

This month, I've been studying metalworking: welding, plasma cutting, bending and heat coloring. My sister Jody has been helping me, and I think we have a really cool set of prototype lanterns that will be finished in a week or so.

WP_20130722_004 The body of the lantern is hand-cut steel. We've ground a texture into the surface, bent and tack-welded the shell together, and used heat to color the designs.

This week we'll create encaustic monoprint 'cones' that will flare out from the tops of these shells. And we'll build the lamp bases that will hold the bulbs. Even though we think we know what these lanterns will look like when they're done, we've already been surprised a few times during the process. I'm sure the end result will be 'interesting' in any case! You'll have to wait to see the final results. These photos are before and after the heat-coloring process. There's also a short video of me applying the coloring.

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