Long weekend projects!

For the long weekend we went to Rocky Mountain House to get a bit of heavier work done in the forge at my parents shop. The forge is pretty neat and was built from two recycled brake drums from a semi truck that have been cut up and welded to a metal bench. I will have to include some pictures of it in the future. I have found over the last couple of years that I prefer using a coal burning forge to anneal metal rather than a couple of torches to heat larger pieces of metal(as long as the metal does not incinerate!). Where I am in the city it would be impossible to set up anything like that so I will have to continue going to R.M.H to make larger scale items that need to be annealed several times. Here are several items that we worked on over the weekend. Keep in mind they still have to be shaped a little more, we have to add patina  and perhaps add a metal background or make a stand to keep the item on.
I tend to like to frame the 3-d pieces with an etched background with color or patina, rather then make stands for them at  the moment. Although with the seashell looking piece I may make a copper stand for it after I finish shaping it and adding some patina.

The pictures aren't the best at the moment, as I just took a couple of quick snapshots!

The other work I did over the weekend was the complete opposite in terms of the type of metal work. As most of my customers know, I do a lot of wire work. Most of the wire work is in jewelry form, but I do some larger wire sculpture as well. I am 100% self taught in this area and I am always developing different ways of wire setting stones and doing sculptural work. Here is a couple of pieces over the weekend I worked on.

This next picture is a huge necklace I have been working on for the last week. I am hoping to put it in one of the well known galleries in Edmonton soon. It is sterling silver, prehnite and green quartz. I am still working on the prong settings for the quartz and still have to connect all of the of pieces together. Hopefully I will be able to finish the entire piece in a couple of weeks and I will be able to post a couple of decent pictures.

Last item we worked on was a couple of leather masks. Lately we have been making mixed metal and leather. Here is one of Tanner's new masks, It hasn't been coated yet, but it is looking pretty awesome. He draws out all his templates completely based on a line of monsters/aliens he has been drawing for the last 15 or 16 years.

He might add some metal tips to the horns! I will post some finished pictures the moment he is done!