Eight Days a Week

I swear, I think of metal all the time. Even when I think I’ve had enough of it, I take a break and get right back down to business. Case in point, today’s work. I went to class early in hopes of carving my first casting. We recently learned [cuttlefish casting](http://www.pennabilli.org/tecniche/CUTTLEBONE.htm), an old method of casting which produces immediate results. The good thing is that it’s fairly easy to do and quick to cast. The bad thing is that it smells, doesn’t do intricate work, and produces a piece with distinct texture. Actually, the worst thing is the smell. Burning cuttlefish smells like wet dogs. After doing four of these today, I can tell you I’ll be able to detect burning cuttlefish until I die. I wish I had thought to take a picture of my first piece, but I promise I’ll get it on here soon. Anyway, I tried four different castings and only two came out. Neither of them is good enough to be my real class sample, but I’m figuring this thing out as I go. We’re supposed to be carving fantasy bugs out of the cuttlefish and I can’t seem to figure out what I want to do. So I left class not wanting to do any more metal work tonight. I went home, ate dinner and watched some tv. After about two hours, I wandered back down to the studio where I worked another two hours before coming upstairs to write this post.

So much for taking a break tonight. Tomorrow I start working on the stand for my cup I was raising earlier. It should be done next week so I’ll post pictures here first thing. Hope it looks as great in person as it does in my head!