Repurposing Repousse !

Having taken to making jewellery , this side of my art seems to be continually in ignore mode, :( sadly so. Well not making apologies or excuses rather here is what I have been doing. I recently took up my pitch pot and realized the pitch had gone brittle again! well, after having gone back and forth about making new pitch or maybe buying some red or green pitch from abroad, I finally decided all the pitch really needed was a good dose of coconut oil and some reheating. So on to my gas stove went my bowl and after about an hours worth of low heat ( never ever let your pitch overflow onto your gas range, its murder to get out !!!) Here is the bowl after a good couple of hours and all the little pimples you see is because of the air escaping after all the boiling . I wish I had gotten an image of the pitch boiling it looked like a witch's cauldron ( boil and bubble!! :D)  

So what is the all this pitch hullabaloo about? well its a new project that is completely repousse`

The first stage with the shape outlined and basic relief work

Out of the pitch with some of the detailing done

Finished Rams with hollow pipe rings through the smaller ring in the nose

A Ram masquerades as an innovative cover for a peep hole

Some habits die hard, especially those of an artist. I have seen a 90 year old artist continue to paint and exhibit after having officially 'retired' about two times both times having a 'My very last show' to announce the retirement. So given that I have shifted to making only jewellry for the past three years this project made me realize that I will never really be able to stay away from proper metalwork. So here is what I am upto these days, now this is an attempt at getting back to metal work though I am not sure how many pieces I will be able to churn out on a regular basis.
This is a piece that really  has no official name, its just that the peep hole in our main door has a little chip of sunmica missing on the bottom and I wanted to cover it up with something. So I came up with this

Sketch of a Ram in profile

The peep hole itself would nestle in the round gap in the centre of the horn on the right. The original plan called for having a hinged lid soldered onto the horn so as to completely cover the peep hole when not in use. But as the piece came to completion I realized that the lid would actually hinder any body from actually looking out through it comfortably. So the lid is now tossed. Here is the Ram with the outline tooled out.

Ram with the out line tooled out

Ram with a basic relief worked out. This is after one turn in my pitch bowl.















The final relief done with another round in the pitch bowl. This time I got all the areas worked out or so I thought I had to use my tools outside the bowl again to round out a few of the areas.

All finished with the detailing done and the extra metal cut out along with the space for the peep hole within the curls of the Ram's horn.

All finished !

A portrait in water colours and water colour pencils

Portrait in water colour pencils and water colours
©2012 Nayna Shriyan

Another portrait commission !!! Well this one was short notice so I had to do some quick thinking and change the medium. Normally an 'oils' only girl I  had to switch to colour pencils and surprise surprise I loved it!!!

Started out quite cautiously as I was painfully aware that any mistakes it would be a complete do over. After getting the drawing in place I started out with the lightest pencils and started blocking in areas graduating to the middle and darker tones quite gradually. I realized that it was all about the control and the amount of pressure I was applying to get the correct tonal depth. I also opted out of using a wet brush over the pencils as I really fell in love with the kind of textural effect that I saw coming about from using the pencils over a smooth hand made paper block. 

The hair was the result of some very thick water colour and the clothes did get a slight wet brushing to smoothen things out . What do you think should I keep experimenting with pencil colours or stick to my beloved oils?