Hey, if you were here anytime in the recent past, which goes back to the First Civil War, you probably had yer picture took, in which case it may well have ended up in the collection of group photos I’ve just snaggled for my seovideo thumbnail buttons, and you might very well be staring at yourself selling something on my youtube channel. Well, if not exactly SELLING something, at least touting some deranged method of upscaling into a higher universe, or maybe embossing a medallion for a super winner. Continue reading →
Radio Robot is a combination of crystal radio technology and cartoon animation.
Yes, it’s here, and I feel almost “led” to them by a higher force, possibly a Marketing Angel, so I’m presenting them, for what it’s worth. What is a Radio Robot? I’ll try my best to explain:
It all starts with the preparation of the plate, where I roll out the metal prior to embossing. This has to be done right, or the piece doesn’t come out imbued. The rollout process is something akin to rolling out the bakery dough — that’s where you imbue with prayer and blessings, all within this single process.
Then comes the embossing, final clean-roll and of course, the mounting in a capsule, flip or silver or 14k gold bezel, or on a backboard as a lightweight and inexpensive earring set, but that doesn’t explain what the Radio Robot is and does.
The Radio Robot design is an incorporation of a simplified crystal radio circuit that would actually work if it existed in radio component parts and, of course, it does — it’s what makes the SuperBeacon and every other crystal radio apparatus function, which is a detector and tuning mechanism within the receiving radio circuit. Continue reading →
If they’re cheap enough, earrings can be bought at the rate of a pair a day, and some folks will do exactly that — buy a pair a day or more. With Gender Fluidity becoming all the rage among youngsters, there’s a good chance that everyone will have piercings galore, which indicates that there will be more than enough piercings on the average teenage body to accommodate dozens of earrings at a time, so don’t stop at the ears!
With my Teeny Copper and Teeny Brass Earring Kits, you can make thousands of earrings an hour, and they’re so cheap, quick and easy to make! Okay, maybe not THOUSANDS of earrings an hour, but certainly dozens.
Actually, the earrings will cost on the average of less than a dollar to make, and for another half a buck, you can successfully and wonderfully package them for easy retail sales.
Yes, I said “easy sale”, because there’s nothing easier than selling someone their own name or their Zodiac sign or their pet’s name etched in copper or brass, and that’s just the NAME variety of earrings or medallions — but there are so many more things you can do with this amazing medium, beyond just names and Zodiac signs.
You see, a craft circle is a CRAFT circle, meaning that the folks are engaged in learning how to make a special and very unusual handmade item in a Paleo way. Continue reading →
Can you pick me out in photo? Craft Session at Camp Woodland, August 25, 1955. You can order the book “Downtown Community School” from Gateways Books & Tapes.
Kids had such a transformative experience working with adults in the Craft Classes at Camp Woodland and Downtown Community School under the direction of Norman Studer during the 1950s, and when families worked together on simple craft projects and craft shows, it was like a bunch of gluons had suddenly bonded the family members into a blended and harmonious unity, and that’s exactly what’s needed in this world of pain.
I’m designing an entire LINE of metal-embossing kits, and I’ll tell you why — the new EK cutter is a piece of crap, although it does admittedly do the job, but it does it with four massive crimps in the sides, which eventually will roll out with pressure and persistence, but the additional effort makes the thing too time-expensive for the marketplace.
So I decided to set up a craft supply “factory” where I either make or encourage and teach others to make little circular foil bits for sale to embossers everywhere.
We’re making embossings that can actually be used in jewelry mountings, because our sizes correspond to the mountings without modification. We’re among the very few who make embossings on round foil disks. Continue reading →
Pueblo in the Sky looks easy, but offers some serious challenges.
My style of embossing is free-hand and free-style. Unless illustrating by example some technique or interesting embossing tool, I use only one very basic tool — a very tiny ball-tipped embossing stylus, and that’s about it.
Once in a while, I’ll use the nylon tip on the other end of my basic tool to make a larger dip in the metal from the back side, but other than that, it’s just one tool and the movement of my hands and fingertips.
You can’t just “straight draw” on metal, even foil. It doesn’t LIKE to be pushed around, and it will fight you and make you go crinkly and lumpy and weird.
Curved lines are the bane of every engraver. Spend a few hours mastering it before you screw up hundreds of pieces that COULD have worked, had you taken the time to discover how to make curved lines work in metal foil.
If you’re working in the thicker material, you’ll have to find your own way. It’s not easy to work that stuff, and anything thicker than .36 gauge will probably defeat any beginner, although there’s always beginner’s luck.
“Pueblo in the Sky”, illustrated above, uses straight lines against curves to achieve its effect. You start by drawing in the sidewalks, then add the building on the right, starting with the left top and working your way toward the doorway, actually a triple arch, if you’ll take notice. The dots on the sidewalk can also be circles or squares, to add to the illusion of depth.
Straight lines are easy to emboss free-hand on foil. They will tend to look exactly the same as your drawings on paper. As a matter of fact, even your sculptures and ceramics will reflect your drawing skills or lack of them.
If you’re not very good at drawing, try some of my art books on the subject. I can help anyone learn to draw, even if they can’t even draw a stick-figure. Continue reading →
In the course of making several dozen Cornflower Mandalas yesterday, I happened upon a disk made of the embossing metal I’ve been using for decades, now, and duly made a Cornfield Mandala upon it and packed it into a dollar-sized cardboard “flip” coin holder, so-called because to look at the other side of a coin, you flip the flip over with an easy practiced move.
Boy, the key word there is surely “practiced”, and “practiced moves” is what metal embossing and coin-carving is all about, and that goes double for gem-setting and ring-making and painting and sculpting and video gaming and hopscotch and just about anything else you endeavor to do well.
The “right moves” is a Big Number in Buddhism, meaning that it’s important.
“Right Action” means making the right moves at the right time in the right place with the right intention, nice and smooth, making no sudden moves, no ripples in the Firmament or Force.
In short, “Right Action” is grace and movement in relating to the universe and other Beings, and is and was a big subject with Picasso, Matisse, Dali and Stravinski. Continue reading →
“Country Road Along Canal, Amsterdam 1645” comes out differently every time.
I’ve given my sources for my metal embossing projects, so that you can bring your prices down, down, down, to the level where there’s some profit in it and it’s worth your while to devote time, energy and talent to the thing.
But what if you DON’T intend to quit the day job and sell your embossed metal artwork to thousands of satisfied customers??? What if you don’t intend to order and await shipments of industrial foil, huge cartons of coin-flips and enormous quantities of sales tags? For you, there is a VERY good answer.
I make kits that are attuned to specific projects. You get all the materials and supplies you need to make 21 finished disks mounted in “flip” coin-frames for sale — that’s one to wear in a bezel or carry as a pocket-pal or purse-pal in an acrylic capsule, if you decide to use those items.
ALL MY DESIGNS COME IN ONLY ONE SIZE, made especially for the dollar-sized disk & bezel. You can re-size them as you wish. You will do better by just sort of roughly and generally copying the lines rather than trying to trace them, but some folks won’t have it any other way, so for them, you’ll have to shrink the thing down on photoshop and print it out on a TRANSFER paper, I suppose.
If you work this system rightly, you’ll develop your own “iconographics” and get them into the metal form. The whole point here is to utilize “reductionism” in order to simplify the form, as Cangialosi would have said it. You can also understand the concept in the following Matisse-ian way:
“EXPRESS THE SUBJECT WITH THE FEWEST POSSIBLE LINES.” Continue reading →
