New Studio

Spring is not quite in the air here in the south-east of England but I think it won't be long, the daffodils are in bud and just waiting for some warm sun. Nevertheless I am excited because we will be building a studio in the garden next month. Since moving back to England I have mourned the loss of my old studio in Canada. Under-appreciated at the time it was merely part of the basement of our large house, nicely warmed by the furnace and with the laundry sink close by with hot and cold running water, two windows looking out on my garden.

At this moment I am renting an old cowshed on a farm - clean and painted white inside admittedly but draughty and cold with no natural light, no sink and only cold water available outside. When I first rented it there were other artists on the farm too, a couple who do hand book-binding and a woman who carved granite sculptures. They were lovely and made it bearable. Since they have left and some unfriendly characters  moved in I no longer want to be there at all.

So, the decision to build a studio taking up part of our small garden was made, costs debated over, savings pondered and finally we gave the go ahead to a local man who is happy to have my husband help him build a wood framed fully insulated 'shed'. I can't wait for it to start and have already bought a climbing rose to grow over it.

Sublime Blue

Bluebells at Dusk

Last wednesday evening I went walking with friends in some woodland down in East Sussex. The bluebells have been better than usual this year, prolific and lasting for weeks and we walked among them as the sun was gradually sinking. The sublime blue hovers like a misty haze just above the ground and as the dusk deepens it turns slowly from blue to purple. We hoped to see badgers or foxes but despite staying quiet until it was dark all we saw was a tawny owl.

Afterwards we walked back through the woods to our hosts who own and manage the woodland and who keep 25 peacocks around their house including one pure white one. Their cries had been piercing the night since we arrived. Several of the peacocks were displaying their tail feathers fully and engaging in some courtship behaviour, but I did not see any glimmer of interest from the peahens, they were playing hard to get. We were served Victoria sponge made with peacock eggs.

It is not only the bluebells that have been wonderful this year but also the hollows carpeted with the white starry flowers of wild garlic and the boggy woodland studded with magenta orchids, the creamy blackthorn blossom in the hedgerows and the pale yellow primroses on the stream banks. I look forward to the wild anemones that come next.

Hello Again

I have decided to resurrect this blog, I think I have missed writing it. I really have no idea how many people end up reading it or whether anyone does, but I do enjoy writing it so long as it doesn't become a chore. So I will endeavour to write when I have something to say and never just because it has been a while since I wrote and I think I should write.

Since I last wrote I have moved from Canada to England. This involved convincing husband this was the right thing to do, selling our house in British Columbia, having the essentials shipped to the UK (my jewellery making tools and our bicycles), putting the rest of our stuff in storage, finding a house to rent in Kent, then finding a studio to rent, then after a year finding a house to buy and buying more stuff to go in it. Totally exhausting and stressful. But here we are now in a small brick cottage in an idyllic English village, and my husband loves it.

Moving my jewellery business has been difficult, almost but not quite like starting from scratch again. I had to find studio space which took four months and then unpack the tools I had brought over. I realised that the two pieces of equipment that I thought were too heavy or might not work over here - namely rolling mill and torch regulators and hoses - were the two that I really missed. Still there is always a way around - renting bench space on a day basis when I need to use a rolling mill, and for a torch - a cheap basic plumbers torch that was a stop gap but is still in use.

As for customers, I need to work on this area. I still ship work back to Canada to my favourite store that sells it so well and I sell online on Etsy which is worldwide anyway so no change there really. I now sell on another online store based in the UK  

www.notonthehighstreet.com/annaclarkstudio 

and I have ventured back into the art fair game. All in all it has been a good thing and I am happy to be here right now but international moving is not for the faint of heart. Having said that I have just booked a flight to Canada, just a holiday for three weeks to catch up with all my dear friends, do a little skiing and to rummage through our storage locker and look longingly at my old rolling mill.

Blogging Blues

I really like the idea of a blog - a diary that is public - two extremes of the spectrum coming together and becoming something new and different. There are some great blogs - well written, beautifully designed, great pictures and posted often, but I don't think mine is among them. When I started it I was dipping my toe in the online waters to see how I would like the temperature, and while I kinda like it, I don't like it enough to really want to stay in it. So this will probably be my last post on this blog. My thanks go to the people who cared enough to become a "follower" and my special thanks go to Sylvia who always has had something very encouraging to say to me.

I'll leave with a picture of a brooch I finished recently in silver, copper and enamel.

Etching Silver

I have been interested in the idea of etching silver for a couple of years now and finally this week I actually did it. So for anyone interested in the technique here's how I went about it, bearing in mind that at this stage I have etched exactly four pieces of silver!

My experience with etching has been limited to etching copper and brass with Ferric Chloride. The chemical that I was interested in using on silver is Ferric Nitrate. The traditional chemical to etch silver has been nitric acid but Ferric Nitrate is safer to use and I have read that it gives a cleaner etch. First I had to source the Ferric Nitrate, with the help of google and a couple of emails to artists I found online I quickly had a source in British Columbia - xenexlabs .com. Surprisingly they shipped it to me through the regular mail, it was $78 for 500g, plus tax and shipping. The chemical comes as greyish-mauve crystals.

I contacted Ontario jeweller and metalsmith Sandra Noble Goss for some notes on dilution strength which she kindly emailed me back right away. It appears that you can alter the dilution of the crystals depending on how long you are prepared to wait for the metal to etch. Since I had bought 500g I decided to make up half of that and keep the rest of the crystals for another batch later on. I used a small tupperware container which 350ml of water filled nicely. I added my 250g Ferric Nitrate crystals to the water and stirred until they were dissolved - I used warm tap water. According to Sandra's notes I could have used a stronger solution or a weaker one (1:1 water to crystals or 2:1), I simply chose the proportions that best fit my container and the amount of crystals I had bought.

I prepared my silver the same way as one would prepare copper or brass for Ferric Chloride etching ie starting with clean metal, the design applied in PnP blue transfer paper, the back and sides taped off with packing tape. If you don't have the PnP paper you can use an oil-based paint pen to draw on the metal, however I would recommend PnP paper above anything else - enamelworksupply.com has it and many other places I am sure.

It is necessary to suspend the prepared metal in the Ferric Nitrate solution and it must be upside down so the residue can fall out. I taped fishing line to the back and then taped the lines to the edge of the tupperware container pulling it tight enough so the piece is submerged but not touching the bottom, then put the lid on. I got a very good etch in 4hrs at this strength of solution. When you take it out put the piece in a bowl of water with baking soda in it and rub more baking soda directly on the piece, scrub well. This will neutralize the Ferric Nitrate and clean off the greyish film. The PnP residue can be sanded off or removed with acetone. There, you should have a lovely piece of etched silver ready to make into something beautiful.

Safety First: wear an apron and gloves and safety glasses, don't get the solution on your skin or clothes. When making up the solution I worked under a fume hood to be on the safe side, while the etch was working I had a lid on the container. Always use baking soda to neutralize. The solution can be used over again - as I have only just started I don't know how long it will work for, eventually it will wear out. The best disposal recommendation would be taking it to a toxic waste specialist.

If you have already etched with Ferric Chloride these notes should be enough to help you start with Ferric Nitrate. If you have never etched I would recommend you see a demo first as written notes are really just an addition to watching it done. If you have questions though, I'll try and answer them. Also if you can get Linda Darty's book The Art of Enameling, she covers the process in there quite well.

Bragging!

Earrings in sterling silver and enamel

Is it ok to brag about your own work really? To blow your own trumpet and say how great your work is? Well, what I am really saying is that I made these earrings and I really like them, I don't think I could make them any better.

Actually I think it is a very useful skill to be able to critique your own work. So here goes... I love these earrings for their slightly unusual shape - not complex but not exactly straightforward either. I love the pattern - a classic Japanese chrysanthemum pattern, and the scale of the pattern is exactly right for the size of earring. I especially love this green enamel - Thompson's unleaded Grass Green, which by the way is the easiest, most forgiving colour to work with on sterling. I also think that the plain silver, slightly textured domes work well as a counterpoint to the coloured enamel.

So, I am not really bragging just sighing with relief that a piece of jewellery went right for a change. Believe me I have a box of rejects waiting to be de-enamelled and re-fashioned or simply thown in with the scrap. After all if you cannot critique your own work how will you ever realise what went wrong with it?

Summer Time

Why is summer so busy?

There are so many things that I want to do including continuing to make jewellery that this blog has most definitely fallen by the wayside. My husband and I went away for five weeks to the UK to visit my family (picture above is taken on the Isle of Wight) and I just never caught up when I came home.

Every winter I always picture myself enjoying long lazy days in summer, promising myself that there will be outdoor sketching days, pure designing days, experimental metal work days, days for new enamel ideas, and on and on. It never seems to happen that way does it?

I have actually sold a lot of work this summer which is good of course, but what happens next is that I have to make more inventory and as I am only one person not a factory it seems to take forever. Cranking pieces out with no thought for their quality is not what I want to do, so I continue to work painstakingly on each piece - can't do it any other way.

In addition, I am working on some interesting 'things' in enamel - not jewellery - as part of a possible commission. I won't say any more except "watch this space" for further details! Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and continue weeding my garden.