I tried to undercut the border then make teeth... this didn't quite work. several sections needed to be reapplied several times. lots of wire falling to the floor, very clumsy. some sections I actually dug a round channel with a bur and used a pointy bulino tool to add teeth as the surrounding work was all in but when flattening with lighter taps with the handpiece it work hardens and warps and when it's not held down you hit one bit and the other end walks up out of the hole. . that stuck. I honestly don't think my teeth would have held gold either. I'm just not getting sharp strong grooves
after another full day of work from where I lost enthusiasm a year or more ago I got a copper background with only a few small patches where I'd punched too hard or on an angle. it's only for me so that ok
I then got into concepts and using a spray spatter brush and white paint and darker paint drew this as my guide for today's work. (I truly don't know how to salvage left cats face... I tried to use lines to create the fur but it needed to be dots given he's so small. I also made deep cuts for the spots and went too deep around his mouth and nose and well... he's a mess ). I have burnished his face. I have sanded half my work off after trying to make dots for the sky without removing the burs... disaster. they all caught dirt and it looked an epic mess. doing again with tiny dashes flicking the chip each time. Oh... the red marks are areas i planned to do a bit more to today too
I am not sure how much more ill do to this. I am very keen if anyone has any pointers to improve it without sanding all my efforts off. Id rather have the piece that i can show students and say do this, not this....
I started this bird some seven or so years ago. The tag was stainless. This took an extremely long time and was quite hard. I think bulino in silver is more pleasant to do.
I really struggled for a smooth grey on the sky. when I'd pull back and look by the naked eye it looked very spotty, like I had lots of little dots and big ones too or something. I tried to pull the bird forward by pushing the sky and hills back by darkening them but doing the reverse would have been better. should I have used dashes instead of dots for the sky?