Unplanned Post

This is not the post I had hoped to make tonight - I am having irksome technical difficulties uploading photographs of my latest experiments. So instead, I decided to show some more goodies I've found laying around. On my jaunt around the factory I work in, I found some utter beauts but they were sadly too large to pocket, so for now, meet these:

Another mobile phone special, this photograph lacks in quality but I am glad that it still portrays well the warped shapes of these 'specimens'. I still enjoy the idea of cataloguing these found pieces and examining them for inspiration. I feel that shape manipulation and moulding are aspects that I would like to play around with more. Being a printer by trade I am too quick to 'make prints' and dye as opposed to physically kneading my materials and affecting their structure.

Wrapping & Rusting

Here are the latest batch of images from experiments with the contents of my latest parcel from Sara - combined with some items from previous parcels - which coincided with collecting items for a "final parcel" for Sara. The final parcel is just about complete and I am looking forward to sharing it's contents and the reasons I chose each item for Sara to work with and what ideas I have in mind for them and how that differs from Sara's initial ideas and impressions.

Washers linked with a lace trim creating a bracelet.

Worn as a bracelet.

The washer bracelet after rusting. I love the intense orange combined with the black. The coating on the washers has also corroded into some  interesting colours. I got the instructions for the linking in the bracelet online and I think that it's a nice way to integrate the metals and materials. Individually the bracelet isn't enough though, and I would like to see this idea layered up.

Bolt nuts linked in a string braid.

Again here, but rusted. The rust has only affected one nut because of the way the nuts were placed in the vinegar. Again I tried linking them into a braid with instructions for simple "craft" bracelets online, but this method was less effective as I hadn't used the right nuts. I will have to see if I can get thinner ones as the bracelet links they can create are really tough looking and would look brilliant on a large scale design.

Again taking inspiration from combining metals with fabrics I came up with the idea of wrapping nuts and washers with different materials. I like them already; before any destructive processes as they are very soft and feminine and I think they will look really striking after some experimentation. I love the mix of different shapes and fabrics so I think for a final piece, a good mix of different wrapped objects sewn together would work most effectively.

More experiments with wrapping - this time a large screw and string. However, this wasn't nearly so impressive as the other "wrappings" and I have definitely overloaded the string with rust and it is now rather sludgy. I like the marks made on the tissue with it though, so maybe it could be used as a tool for mark making.