"Rosemailling", a Scandinavian folf art tradition as inspiration for engraving

[rod]

Our colleague, Lucie B, for the Czech Republic posted me some interesting examples of the Scandinavian folk art tradition called, "Rosemailling", online videos show a rather intriguing painting equivalent of very nice scroll and leaf work usually painted on furniture and household artifacts....I wrote back:

Lucie,

Thank you for your suggestion and examples of "Rosemåling", I became very interested in this Scandinavian tradition, and indeed, watching videos of these artists painting is very intriguing.

As a small practice exercise, I tried a 'beauty line' engraving of one of your posted examples, and then made an interpretation of the design in copper and gold. Again, I must be careful to engrave on perfectly flat or perfectly curved surfaces ( no shallow depressions please), otherwise the final sanding to remove gold from the surface will begin to remove engraving cuts. Should this happen, it is simply a case of re-cutting some areas, and then re-plating with gold. These little practices do show what to correct next time. On the copper practice, I outline with my modified flat graver and then scoop with a round graver.

On the Lindsay Forum, Ray Cover posted a very nice way to fast track my modified flat graver geometry to keep side edge drag off wide bright cuts in tight turns. I wrote him...

Ray, when you kindly posted your much faster approach to preparing a similar geometry for making a flat graver with "tucked back" side edge, I was delighted, and after returning from a Canada visit I immediately had a go following your approach. For me, it is still a problem of some side edge drag on the very tightest small turns, but fine on larger radius turns. I still do prefer to have just a bit of untouched side edge at each corner, otherwise I find my corner points tend to dig. Once again, let me add that this might just be my lack of skill in using the geometry? That said, the posted photos of your geometry is definitely a fast track approach, and all I now do is modify it slightly.

With some crude over-sized wood 'gravers', I have tried to show Ray's geometry ( with a rounded heel), followed by the small changes I make to allow tight bright turns with no side edge drag, and also leaving untouched a small portion of the graver edge to counteract the tool tending to dive.

Excuse the poor photos, I only have my iPhone camera at this moment. One photo is out of place, but the graver geometry shows Ray's faster way to grind, and here I have put my well rounded heel on his approach, following along on the seventh photo I show my slight modification of Ray's proposed shape.

Thank you, Ray!

Rod ps : how do I correct my spelling on the post title .. 'fofk' should be 'folk' ?

 

[rod]

I am not there yet with this technique, but getting closer with each practice. To ensure a fast removal of gold from the surface of the silver in this case, it is essential that you first prepare your silver to be very flat, not flat that looks good, but engineering style flat ... very flat. This way the gold can be fine sanded off the surface, after plating with little damage to the engraved cuts. You will still see signs of the sanding removing a bit of detail towards the center of the piece.

Preparing this 30 mm diameter piece, I rough cut then turned the outside and thinned the silver down along the rim, so that when I then rolled in a milgrain border, using the lathe, the ornament was well below the surface and would retain its gold look after sanding.

Next, I took care to lap the silver disc on a granite plate with 1200 grit sand paper and a little oil, using figure of eight strokes. If you are not used to creating truly flat surfaces, the tendency is to create a shallow dome. So to monitor the surface, wipe with a black 'Magic Marker', allow it to dry, and continue lapping. Frequently lift the silver and inspect your progress. Chances are black ink will remain at the outer edges. Continue till it is truly flat. I like to squash a blob of modeling clay (Plasticine) on the back of the silver, as a finger grip, and this helps me to a more even result.

Now engrave your piece, and again lap it flat to remove any possible graver burs. You can test the safe depth of your flare cuts by again Magic Marking in whole piece, and once more fine sanding, The surface should clean off immediately, but your cuts should all remain black. If you see your cuts starting to sand bright, you have not cut deep enough.

On this test, after plating, the nickel and gold came off very fast and easily.

I am not happy with some parts of the design, so will try a few more variations. Notice near to the rim, some remnants of nickel and gold on the surface, yet to be removed.

Flat lighting is the only way to show detail in a photo, however in real life, the piece sparkles like crazy, since so many scooped cuts are used on leaves, and these act like curved mirrors to reflect ambient light.

Let me restate that, in no way am I suggesting such techniques are to be thought of on the same page as serious and superb gold inlay and overlay methods used throughout masterful weapons engraving. I mean this only as a jewelry technique that may benefit from a bit more 'pop' for the eye.

Rod

 

[Marrinan]

Rod,
I have no experience with pen plating but it might be an option. I could also see the application of translucent enamels rather than the gold as another approach. Beautiful and innovative work. Thanks for sharing your progress on the development of this technique. I think there might be a downturn in the use of gold in inlay on weapons. There were once significant sculptures of gold in Rome, Greece, Egypt, France, the Far East and even the Americas. The Celts had quit a lot of art produced in gold and silver as well. Most of this irreplaceable art from master goldsmiths like De Vinci, Michaelangelo and Cecilia, has been lost to the furnace-Fred

 

[rod]

Thanks, Fred!

I have tried pen plating in the past, but for the tiny stuff we engravers often do, it would be very clumsy, and take forever to try to get clean line separation silver to gold, whereas the above approach ends up with very clean separation, and very fast.... if... you ensure a flat surface to start with.

For some of us, it was not that long ago when Nixon let the price of gold float, it was then only $35 and ounce. It would be nice if gold was priced for its material usefulness, and not as an inflation hedge. Even at today's gold costs, master engravers will continue to inlay or overlay the real thing, no question.

You are right about we Celts using a lot of gold in early times. I have the privilege of snooping the backrooms and basements of some world class museums, usually in flute related research, with permission from the directors, of course. My goodness, there is a heck of a lot of 24 k gold objects stacked up in the National Museum of Ireland, too much to have on display. Here is my beef with that fine museum in Dublin, I cannot get a high resolution photo that is a match for the detailed work on the world famous Tara Brooch. Perhaps soon the Google Art project will do it, their results so far are fantastic, you can count individual hairs on the eyelashes of characters in large paintings. Check it out:

http://www.googleartproject.com/

Rod

 

[SamW]

That is very attractive and interesting work Rod and I commend you for your efforts and for sharing with us all. It should have any number of applications.

 

[rod]

Thanks, Sam!

I am getting some confidence in the technique, but at the expense of the design. The Scandinavian folk painting tradition that Lucie drew to my attention was certainly an inspirational boost, and present practice needs to be re-thought, as the flare cutting does not perfectly translate from line drawing, but shows promise. I will keep nudging away at this.

Sam, I am going to drive 280 miles to Redding, North California for the "annular" solar eclipse on May 20 coming up. A good sweep of locations to see the whole thing is Southern Oregon and Northern California, if the weather holds, and it will happen around 6pm. Perhaps you will see a chunk of the shadow from Utah, so maybe time to make a pin hole camera shadow, unless you have a sun filter for your telescope? I said annular and not annual eclipse, but it would be nice to see one every year. Others may not know that it is called annular (meaning ring shaped) because the moon will be in its somewhat larger radius from Earth on May 20, so will not totally block all of the sun, only 88 %.

Then there is the transit of Venus June 5, we can all see that one.

best

Rod

 

[SamW]

From the map in Astronomy Magazine it looks like I should be on the edge of the annular shadow so should get a good view from the La Sal Mountains at end of our valley. The pin hole camera is a great suggestion...I will make up one and hope it isn't cloudy that evening. My first thought when I read of the eclipse was that it would make for an easy weather forecast for Castle Valley that day...Cloudy with a chance of rain...!