Keum BOO!

Well, I'm just back from our very first Metal Retreat, which I co-hosted with my friend and fellow metal artist Melissa Muir. We had sooooooo much fun - we played with new techniques and equipment from one another's studios and laughed our fool heads off. (You can read more about the trip on my blog if you'd like.)

One of the techniques I played with was Keum Boo. It can be pronounced either "kim boo" or "kum boo", and it refers to the process of applying precious metal foils to other metals.

E. Christopher & Sons Keum Boo Pendant

Silver Keum Boo Bangle by Jewelscurnow on Etsy

Fire Pendant #2 - Keum Boo by Robin Cruz McGee

The idea is that by adding thin foil layers to a piece, it's possible to get the effect of precious metal for a lower cost and without casting or laminating different metals together. (Charles Lewton-Brain has a good summary article of the particulars over on Ganoskin if you're interested in the science of it.)

One of the attendees at our retreat does a lot of Keum Boo - and we were all fascinated.

Judy Rose demonstrating Keum Boo

A pair of Judy's Keum Boo earrings. Photo by Morgan Corder Bass.

So I took a stab at it. And I'm in love.

Start by depletion gilding your sterling silver piece so that it is covered in a thin layer of fine silver. Depletion gilding is accomplished by repeatedly heating and pickling the piece until it stays white or pale grey when it's heated.

Depletion gilded pieces (made from my scrap pile)

Then the pieces are put on a hot surface - we were using a table top beehive kiln, but in my research a hot plate with a piece of brass on the top supposedly also works. I'll be testing that theory - the hot plate is much (MUCH) less expensive than the beehive kiln.


When the piece gets up to temperature (between 500 and 700 degrees) the 24k gold foil "relaxes" down onto the silver. That's when you can start burnishing the foil down.


You can use either a steel burnisher or an agate burnisher, but be aware that if the steel burnisher gets too hot, the gold will fuse itself to the burnisher instead of the piece. Use a small container of water to keep the burnisher cool - but don't quench the agate burnisher, or it will crack! I used one of each - one to hold the piece steady while I burnished with the other.

The result was pretty cool.


And a little patina made it even more interesting.


The gold foil seems a little pricey at first - $80 to $90 at current prices for a 3-1/2 inch by 3-1/2 inch square. But trust me, a little goes a long way. I am completely in love with the potential of this technique and I plan to be doing a whole lot more of it. And since it seems you can also foil other metals, I'll be experimenting with those too - silver foil on copper or brass? Gold on aluminum or steel? Lots and lots of possibilities! Stayed tuned!

How about you? Have you ever tried Keum Boo? Ever tried a technique that just grabbed you and wouldn't let you go?

Until next time!

Creating "Art"

Last month, I entered some jewelry pieces in a local juried art gallery show. It was kind of a big step for me - I've had my work in gift galleries before but never anyplace "serious." And since submitting the pieces involved creating around a "theme" and preparing an artist's statement, it was WAY out of the box for me. So I thought I'd share some of the process with you!

The theme of the show is "Texas Heat." If you aren't from Texas, perhaps this Colby Jones cartoon will help you understand a little bit about our climate.

(Side note: It was not quite 100 degrees here yesterday; the day before it was 108. I actually said to someone on my way to a meeting that I was glad it was "so much cooler." Not kidding.)

The first challenge was to create a piece or series of pieces that could relate to Texas Heat. Since I am currently obsessed with enamels, I decided to torch-fire some forged panels of copper in a series meant to evoke the progression of the immediate after-math of a fire through the regrowth that happens months or years later. Here is a really bad photo of those panels.

The "immediate aftermath of devastation" is on the left; the "inevitable rebirth" is on the right.

I was pleased with how these turned out - the torch firing left some charred edges that I didn't stone away because they played into the theme. And I loved the colors - this photo doesn't show it well, but I used a mixture of transparent and opaque enamels so that the reds seem to float in the green, sort of like flowers sometimes seem to float in a sea of grass.

Then I was stuck with trying to figure out how to set them - I had to be careful not to bend them and crack the enamel. After some trial and error, I designed slot and tab bezels for the ends and prong set the panels into the resulting cradle. Here are a few shots of my process:

Preparing to test the slot and tab idea.

Tabs dry-fitted into their custom sawn slots with a bead of paste solder ready for firing.

One of the textured backplates with the sawed slot.

You'll have to use your imagination, because I completely forgot to take photos of the prong portion of the adventure. (Enter dream sequence music here!)

Ta-da! The completed pieces.

So there I was, happy with how the pieces turned out... and I had to write an artist's statement. Wait, that's not quite right. I had to write TWO artist's statements: one for my overall approach to my work and one for the pieces or series I was submitting.

And "I make jewelry because I like pretty things" wasn't going to cut it.

I'm going to be painfully and transparently honest here: I loathe artist statements. Loathe. With all due respect to people who think artist statements are important and meaningful, they often wind up sounding - to me - like badly-written and very pretentious wine descriptions. ("A faint oaky bite marries perfectly with the long-legged whisper of citrus that tantalizes the..." What??!) But I had a glass or two of wine, girded my intellectually-deficient loins, and dove on in.

Four excruciating hours later, here's what I came up with:

While fire can wreak havoc and bring destruction, it is also the age-old natural agent of necessary growth and change. Stands of timber and open stretches of prairie alike benefit from being "burned off", so that old dead growth is cleared away and returned to the earth as ash to nourish future growth.  This series of necklaces is a reflection of the effects of the extreme heat of the Texas environment, and – taken together – is meant to evoke a sense of the immediate aftermath of a fire or drought through the inevitable period of recovery, rebirth, and regrowth.    

Not a whisper of citrus or an oaky bite to be found, my friends.

Here's the truth: this was a really good exercise for me. It was painful at times, and I have way (WAY) more hours in these pieces and the entry process than I can ever hope to recoup, even if I'm fortunate enough to sell one or more of these pieces. But it forced me to do several important things:

• I was working against a rock-solid submission deadline. Deadlines are a good thing for me.
• I had to think hard about what I was creating and how it fit into a pre-determined theme.
• I had to figure out why I was creating these pieces and why they spoke to me and then figure out a way to describe that in a way other people could relate to.
• I had to problem-solve a new type of construction (to me) without ever having learned it from someone else. I really like problem-solving.

So in spite of the fact that I felt hugely self-conscious and inadequate in making and describing these pieces, I'm grateful for having forced myself through the process. I have no idea if this makes them "art" or not, or makes them any more "art" than the work I normally do, but I can tell you that these pieces have greater meaning to me.

It doesn't hurt that I found out yesterday three of the four were accepted into the show!

::happy dance::

So are you pushing yourself to work outside your comfort zone? If you're not, identify some places where you can push the envelope a little - you never know what might come of it! 

Until next time -

Coloring on Metal

Not long ago, I stumbled across the work of Deb Karash, who does amazing fabrication work and likes to color on metal.

Yeah. You heard me right. She colors. With colored pencils. On metal.

Are those not stunning? Seriously!

Now, you know that I love all things metal. And when a friend showed me a Deb Karash piece that she actually owns, I decided I had to start experimenting. And let me stress: THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT. (Before I begin, I have to apologize for showing you the gorgeousness above and then subjecting you to my poor little copper etched cow. It's what I had available to play with, left over from a recent etching class. Be kind.)

After reading a whole bunch of stuff on the interwebs (a lot of which was contradictory, I might add) I set out with a small copper etched cow, a bottle of gesso, a 24 pack of Prismacolor pencils, a heat gun, and a few assorted odds and ends.

Before pickling and cleaning.

After pickling and cleaning.

I cleaned her up really thoroughly and dried her off with a clean terry shop cloth.

Then I gave her several thin coats of gesso, drying each one with the heat gun.

Set the hot piece on a bench block, which will cool it rapidly. Use pliers!

After several coats of gesso, I lightly sanded her to expose the raised areas of the etched metal and to smooth out any bumps.

Prismacolors! Don't you just love this tin? 24 great colors to play with - reminds me of the first day of kindergarten!

And then, literally, I just colored her in.

I wasn't particularly neat, and I pressed really hard with the pencils. As you may be able to see in this photo, that left some little wax crumbs behind. I used a soft, firm brush to clean those little crumbs off.

Then, I heated her up with the heat gun again, just until the surface of the color started to look soft.

I also scorched my clean terry shop towel. Don't be like me. (Seriously. Those heat guns are HOT. At about this point of my experiment, I realized I probably should have been heating Bessie on a soldering brick or something fireproof. You know, other than cloth. Sheesh.)

I repeated this several times: color, clean off, heat with the heat gun. Between heatings, I let the piece sit for a few minutes on my bench block to cool off. I should probably tell you at this point that several of the instructions I read online involved baking the piece in a 275 oven for 10 minutes. Between every layer. After putting Krylon spray on it. (Did I mention that this was after every layer?) This is why Deb Karash is so awesome and I am not: I am not that patient. Heat gun. ::Insert Tim the Tool Man grunt here.::

Then, after about three layers of color and the final heating, I buffed the piece with a terry cloth towel....

... and then lightly sanded it back with a sanding sponge.

And then, because I am incapable of doing anything with metal that doesn't involve either enameling or patina baths, I dunked it in Novacan Black for 30 seconds, which darkened all the raised etched areas that were exposed in the final sanding.

Final step: REN WAX!!

So let me point out that, once again, I diverged from the instructions on the interwebs because I am impatient. The instructions were to put the final coat of Ren Wax on the piece, let it dry, then bake the piece in a 275 oven for 10 minutes.

I think you can guess what I did instead.

The Ren Wax flashes and gets very liquid in just a few seconds. Then, when I put the hot metal on the bench block, it cooled immediately and I was able to buff it without waiting.

Because waiting = bad.

Here's the finished little piece - not my usual style at all, but I think there's a lot of potential here. I'm no Deb Karash (obviously) but I think with some further experimentation, this is a process that has a lot of promise for some of the mixed media work I'm fascinated by these days.

So what do you think? Worth some additional effort??

Until next time -

Serious note: heating wax and metal usually results in noxious fumes, most of which are really bad for you. Some of what I am suggesting here may not even be safe - I was experimenting, and I have a lot more research to do. If you decide to try this yourself, make sure you're working in a well-ventilated area and wear a respirator. I wear one in my studio whenever I solder or enamel, and I should absolutely have worn one when I was doing this experiment. Don't be like me.

Book Review: Soldering Made Simple

I've been wanting to read this book since it first came out, at least in part because Joe Silvera, its author, is such an engaging, down-to-earth guy. A few years ago, he and his wife Anat moved their studio to Berkeley, California, to focus on opening and running a jewelry school. Since then, Joe has become an extremely popular instructor at Bead and Button, and this book is - I think - a big part of the reason why.

This is a book that is really and truly written for the home jeweler, starting with a thorough discussion of essential tools and equipment. First up is an overview of soldering boards and blocks and even though I have been soldering for several years, I learned a great deal in just those two pages alone.

Each type has a very specific use, and after reading this section I pulled out every board I had and did some sample soldering just to test out the differences. That new knowledge is going to change the boards I use for different soldering jobs going forward.

There is also a very good explanation of the two main types of butane torches and their safe operation. If you've done any reading about soldering, you may have heard the terms "oxidizing", "neutral", and "reducing" in relation to flame types, and if you're like me, you may have assumed that they were only relevant to the big dual-gas studio torches. Well, not only does this book explain them and how they're used, it also provides close-up photos and instructions about how to obtain them with a butane micro torch.

Joe also gives a high-level review of several basic metalsmithing skills, and I would say that if I have one caution to potential readers, it's that the book assumes certain skills in that area which the reader may not actually have. This is a book about soldering, though, so it's hard to nit-pick. Just be aware that in order to be completely successful with some of the projects, you may need to do some additional homework regarding metalsmithing and metal working tools. And the projects are really fun! There's a squashed hollow bead that I'm dying to try and a gorgeous round box clasp that looks deceptively simple. There's even a ring project that includes some really good information on creating bezels from sheet, determining the proper bezel height, and the proper technique for setting a bezel - all a great bonus in a book about soldering.

There are a couple of minor things to quibble over - for example, Joe demonstrates using shears to cut very small, detailed elements out of metal sheet where I would be inclined to use a jeweler's saw. But that is a matter of preference, not technique. And I found myself wondering what the difference was between "light red" and "pink" when evaluating the color of metal as it is heating - some other point of reference might have been helpful for someone like me who cannot always make nuanced color distinctions. Again, though, these are very minor things and don't impact my recommendation of this book in any way.

So if you are new to soldering, this is a terrific choice for your studio library. It is good, basic instruction written in clear, easy-to-understand language and it will help you equip your home studio properly and safely. As a bonus, working through the 12 included projects will not only leave you with a solid grasp of soldering techniques and how and when to use them, it will also give you an introduction to basic metalworking techniques. What's not to love?

Until next time!

Disclaimer: I came this close to attending a one week metal retreat with Joe the year before he moved his studio to Berkeley, California, to open a jewelry school. We exchanged a few e-mails as I tried to make the decision about whether or not to go, and he was as helpful and encouraging as could be. However, Joe and his publisher Kalmbach Books don't know me from Adam. I purchased this book for my own studio and the opinions expressed here are my own, offered without any hope or promise of compensation. Even the links aren't affiliate links.