Day 3 Idyllwild Arts Program, Metals Week

I have lost track of which picture belongs to which day and from the very first day, Harold O'Connor demonstrated his skillful use of his breath controlled torch. So here's a good picture of Harold and his torch. He told us this is a European technique and we could tell he is highly skilled at using it.

Harold O'Connor and His Breath Controlled Torch

Copper Laminated to Silver and Carved

After we tried making a 3-dimensional form and then reticulating silver, we were introduced to making our own bi-metal from copper and silver. Here is an example of copper soldered to silver, run through the rolling mill several times and then carved to show the silver design underneath. The color is a torch patina on the copper.

The natural progression in making bi-metal was 18K gold on silver. The gold is a very thin gauge which is then fused to 12 gauge silver. First the silver is annealed three times to build up a layer of fine silver. Fine silver fuses easier than sterling.

Gold sheet fused to Sterling Silver

The bubbles that are visible may disappear in the rolling mill process. If not, then the artist works with them to create a design.

18K Gold Laminated on Sterling Silver

The result can be stunning-- especially if Harold O'Connor is the artist demonstrating the technique. In between these demonstrations we were cutting, filing, annealing, pickling, and working with the metal to create pieces with carved bi-metal designs. The result was quite satisfying and I will be showing you some of my work tomorrow.