Products of Puttering

As you know from my last post, I spent yesterday in a delightfully list free day. Part of that was spent 'puttering,' a woefully underated state of being. Some of my puttering involved using some stamps I had made of my drawings. Beth at Hint, recently posted about how she makes fine silver jewelry components from molds of her own drawings. Well, I'm not really one to draw, but I do doodle. In fact doodling seems to be one of my best things. I don't keep a journal but I do keep a file of scraps of paper that I've put little pictoral thoughts on. What you see here are koi fish that I can't get enough of, and the lotus I drew based on the batik stamp I've been using in pottery. I use a little different method than Beth does, but more on that later.

I know koi and lotus are pretty out of step with Northern Hemispher seasons. But I find both images quite timeless, even seasonless. Couple that with having spent many years in Australia, where right now I'd be thinking spring thoughts, well this is what came out. In Australia, it is common practice to keep koi and often that involves keeping aquatic plant life like the lotus. So these 2 images just seemed a natural pairing. And I love koi. For fish, they are wonderfully affectionate. OK, maybe that stretches the truth. But if you've never done this and have the opportunity, put your fingers into a koi pond and most likely they will come up to nibble on your fingers. Wonderful!

These are the drawings my bronze and copper pieces were made from. I was quite skeptical of whether these would translate into useable molds. The koi in particular has a lot of detail and moving that detail down to a bit more than 1/2 inch size was a bit daunting.

But, these metal clays pick up an amazing amount of detail Yippeeee!

Cheers, LeAnn