Thursday, March 17, 2011

A day with resists

I had a day in my studio today. It is far too rare an occasion unfortunately - but nice when it comes. I didn't make anything new, but instead was experimenting with some new dyes and resists for aluminum. 

As you can see here with the bird cage, the resist was used to draw the cage the birds and then the aluminum was dyed and sealed.


In these two pieces, the dye seemed to not take evenly and showed water-type marks.  Here's the trees in resist:


And in this piece, I was going for a Baroque look:


This water-mark dyeing occasionally happens and I'm not sure why.  Guess I'll have to keep experimenting.....

3 comments:

Sue McNenly said...

Even with the watermarks I find the tree one precious. I have no doubt you'll figure it out.....or will it fall into the same dreaded category as a 'bad LOS day', when there never is an explanation.

Jennifer said...

Ruth, I really like your new aluminium work and the direction it's going. The watermarks are interesting and add a spontaneous element. I like that the letters and patterns on the bracelets are uneven. It's the wabi sabi idea of the natural beauty in what seems imperfect. It reminds me of when potters use a glaze and the results are unpredictable because it's the relationship between the glaze and fire that takes over. The artist stands back and lets the magic happen.

Ruth said...

Thanks Sue. Yes, although I'm not against the watermarks, it would be nice if I had a little bit of control over them :=D
Thanks also Jennifer. I like the spontaneity part (- especially after writing Friday's blog post ;-D)and it's nice to think of it as magic! What the metal and dye are saying to each other.