This Dinosaur Skull is my “take” on T-Rex, but it could just as easily be read as a super closeup of a brontosaurus feeding on the top of a tree — it’s all in the label, in this case, but you could get very good at reducing the elements of a meat-eater predator as opposed to a leaf or branch browser.
Of course, ANY animal will work here, alive or dead, currently in stock or extinct.
You’ll want to sharpen your skills at shapes. Note that the teeth are long and sharp, and very exaggerated, as are the double-circled eyes, bulging out from the top of the skull.
I like to sign these opposite the majority of the “weight”, so in this case, I signed it on the eastern side of the rim, meaning the right side of the image. Continue reading →
My Extra-Terrestrial Alien UFO Flying Saucer Spacecraft is typical of the smaller “Scout Ship” types you see around New Mexico and Arizona. They are piloted by greys, but the larger, flatter steel-gray crafts are from Orion and Sirius.
Of course, there are also trans-dimensionals and trans-time voyagers, plus thousands of species of reptilian and several worldsful of Arcturan visitors.
I’m including this little videoclip in the blog format, in order to underline the fact that I’m not a wild-eyed alien freak, or at least I’m among a growing number of former high ranking government and agency people who are finally starting to talk about the many visitors to Planet Earth, among whom are Canadian Minister of Defence Paul Hellyer, who testified before Parliament that there are more than 80 known species of aliens and that humans are in contact with at least four, and that this is being covered up by an international Cartel that hopes to take over the world with alien technology and with them as rulers. 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 →
Selfie at Atlantis Central Zoo & Observatory, Friday, July 8, 2016, 3:46 A.M.
Before I discuss the Healing Mandala, I’d like to point out that, if you’re planning on entering the spiritual game-field of metal embossing sigils, talismans, pendants, rings, pins, headbands, belts, bolo ties and pocket medallions, you will definitely appreciate knowing the following little factoid:
The 24k solid gold disk at 1.4 grams — which is the ideal weight for the small piece, to allow a reasonable retail price-point — when hammered out with a bit of body still left on it, won’t typically fit on the pin-vise without serious compensation and special mountings.
It’s a total pain in the bazonga to try to carve, even if you do manage somehow to put it into a metal harness, because the retaining pins will block your engraving tool and your fingers, making it nearly impossible to complete any cut into the top surface.
However, a 24k solid gold FOIL disk, which is rolled out, not hammered out, can be easily embossed without mounting on a vise — no vise needed for the foil, and the foil could well be an aluminum craft foil, or solid gold foil. Use your fingers to hold onto it.
Your embossing tool can be controlled with one hand, while the engraving tool simply can’t be. You need your other hand to stop the forward movement of the tool, and to guide it onto the target curve or line or gouge.
Funny thing is, once the gold foil or heavier gold slab is inside the bezel and the protective quartz-glass crystals are in place, you can’t tell whether it’s foil or a thicker beaten-out gold disk. Unless you take the locket apart, the foil gold and the heavier “token” weight gold disk, when viewed inside the locket, look exactly the same.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 →
