Our previous term of 8-week courses came to an end four weeks ago, and I have found myself tied to the desk planning the next session which starts week beginning January 14th. As a result, I have had no time for my usual workshop activities. In addition, we have been moving our Wandsworth production workshop (which was in an old factory, now scheduled for demolition) to a smaller unit nearer Wimbledon, and that has sucked up all the remaining time. And I still have to get myself organised to buy student stuff for next term's courses, and update my student's work blog site.
About Me
- Paul Jelley
- London, United Kingdom
- I trained as a metallurgist, mathematician, sculptor and computer systems engineer (in mostly that order); and made my living at various times with all of them. Synth keyboard as a hobby (LRAM). Probably not a good business plan, but it's been a lot of fun. In 1996 I was offered a week-long workshop on ceramic shell bronze casting with David Reid, financed by the Worshipful Company of Founders. This led to my casting my own sculptures in bronze, and later to developing the process for small-scale silver (I have cast a few thousand so far). Over the past ten years I have taken a variety of courses in general goldsmithing, lapidary and gem setting, much of it courtesy of Staff Development funding from Central YMCA. I hope to take some more, since I figure that it is easier to push small amounts of precious metals around rather than large amounts of base ones, especially as I get older. To view my students' work, go to http://jelf0-students.blogspot.com
Discriminating between diamond and CZ
Laid face down on coloured stripes, you should not be able to see the stripes through the diamonds
Dichroic glass & coloured CZ in PMC
An assortment of PMC hearts with heart-shaped cavities, some with coloured CZ, some with dichroic glass, all fired-in-place.
Paua shell & CZ
£400/ct diamonds are nice, but 2.5mm CZ looked exactly as nice when set in this Paua shell.
Making a good impression
A spiral of 1.5mm steel wire, rolled in a sandwich between two bronze coins, then between two copper sheets.
White breaking through to gold...
These coin-bronze pendents were enamelled with diamond flux, then overlaid with opaque white before firing again.
Maybe egg heads like domed rings...
The domed copper rings pictured above were each made in three parts, in the form of an inner plain band and an outer pair of domed half-hoops. These elements were soldered together and then polished to give the finished result. Usually my sense of purpose is more or less exhausted by the time I get to taking pictures, but I guess you could always say the reflections of my fingers give added interest... The left-hand ring has also had a sort of duck-foot motif etched in a meandering fashion round the outside, maybe I still had egg head on my mind (they were intended for an intellectual friend).
Insight into Lapidary
This course was financed for me by Central YMCA as part of my Staff Development, and ran in October 2005. It consisted of an intensive one-day course in the lapidary workshop of Holts in Hatton Garden, London and was run by Roger Dunkin.
Pieces of hard stone (varieties of quartz etc) were dopped to a stick, then ground and polished with rotating diamond and carbide laps. I managed to end up with a big blister from accidentally touching the hot dopping wax, but also took away a nice lacy agate cabochon, together with a small (4cm) carved and polished quartz cross. The workshop was very well equipped, and I will be tempted to sign up to a future facetting workshop.
Pieces of hard stone (varieties of quartz etc) were dopped to a stick, then ground and polished with rotating diamond and carbide laps. I managed to end up with a big blister from accidentally touching the hot dopping wax, but also took away a nice lacy agate cabochon, together with a small (4cm) carved and polished quartz cross. The workshop was very well equipped, and I will be tempted to sign up to a future facetting workshop.From rough as a rasp... to smooth as glass
When I first started making and etching copper rings, I was entranced by the attractive patterns I could get. Subsequently however I found that the sharp vertical edges of the etch were very rough on the skin when worn even for limited periods of time, and even after the ring had been tumbled with abrasive for some hours.
I found that the raspiness was completely cured by enamelling, using the traditional techniques of melting coloured glass powder into the etched cavities. Unfortunately, since I used opaque enamel, this also robbed it of the original dynamic appeal. I feel that if I expend enough effort using transparent enamels instead, it will bring back some of the missing life. A student ring which was pierced through to give a pattern round the entire band was similarly rough on the skin; this was partly cured by fitting a fine silver liner.
I found that the raspiness was completely cured by enamelling, using the traditional techniques of melting coloured glass powder into the etched cavities. Unfortunately, since I used opaque enamel, this also robbed it of the original dynamic appeal. I feel that if I expend enough effort using transparent enamels instead, it will bring back some of the missing life. A student ring which was pierced through to give a pattern round the entire band was similarly rough on the skin; this was partly cured by fitting a fine silver liner.
Bit like being in the barber's chair...
I spent some time doing a life sculpture from a talented swimmer called Marcos de Barros. Above is pictured an early phase in terracotta, later developed into a twice-life-size (i.e. 8 times volume) head.
Side view...
Sort of getting in the mood for sculpting a swimmer.
...and in another pose
The crack is after moulding for a bronze. It was moulded when the original terracotta clay was leather hard, a little firm to remove without some damage.
Silver surfer
This is a sterling silver seahorse I cast from a dried specimen bought some decades ago from a Cornish village. The eyes are two sapphires set in a sterling silver tube which I rivetted right through the head. It was later displayed upright on a silver threaded post.
Eric
I spent a few years making a variety of resin bronze sculptures, all of which were sold in galleries and art fairs around London. The picture of Eric above (sorry about the rather inept photo-editing) is one of the few male torsos I did in resin iron. Subsequently, after buying the equipment for a small foundry, I continued by casting in bronze or silver instead. I am still looking for a suitable workshop space to enable me to cast iron by a thermite technique - any offers?
Spooky in blue...
I initially made a cast from life, and then added a part of a winged helmet before casting it in blue concrete
Some glass...
An early experiment, etching ruby glass with 10% hydrofluoric acid. I would like it as my Blog logo, but I don't think my image manipulation skills are quite up to making it look the way I want.
...and glass with class
I screen-printed this classic Greek frieze design with blue glass powder onto a sheet of plain glass, then fired the composite in a kiln.
Burning out waxes
This is me burning out miniature waxes (for jewellery) at the Business Village in Wandsworth, Broomhill Road. I shall greatly miss some of the pleasant times I had over the past twelve years in this Victorian factory, which is due for demolition in the very near future.
Gareth - male torso bronze sculpture
Cast in bronze, about 30cm high. I made the original male torso in plasticine, and glued sand to it before moulding and casting. This is one of the three illustrated on a gallery leaflet, elsewhere on this site.
Medusa
I made a mould from an original Roman / Turkish Medusa, and then a cast in reinforced resin plaster. Size about 50x50cm (weight about 20kg!)
A little bit of carving
This is a carved version of a very small sculpture I did of a friend called Jane. I also did a plastically-modelled version which was cast in resin iron, and given a graphite finish.
Life cast
| This was a young Swiss student, of striking appearance, at the London College of Fashion; she attended my classes with a friend to explore life casting. | 
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| I made the mould with dental alginate and then took a cast in plaster, as illustrated. |
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No, I haven't entirely got it out of my system...
... but there's hope yet. The top two were done with coloured pencil on black paper sometime in 1985, around 3' x 4', later I tinkered with a more golden-tinted version. Reminds me of art work for the cover of a "DiscWorld" novel. The others are variously unfinished sketches done around 1990 probably. The young lady is Anna Kavanagh who was renting at Studio Place at the same time as myself. All these sketches were found heaped on the floor in a cupboard, and seem to have lost a lot of their pigment.
Some more pastel work from the eighties...
...well, that's what we did, while waiting for ipods and mobile phones to come along...As mentioned above, much of the colouring pigment seems to have ended up on the floor along with the dust. The first picture was actually a second version; I did the first on pastel paper and gifted it to Isabel Langtry, then sculptor in residence at Central YMCA. This second version was re-coloured onto a B&W photocopy, and there wasn't enough 'tooth' on the paper to take the colour. And I remember that the picture with the cluster of figures arising from the waves was used as a sketch for a version re-done on board. The fifth picture was a composite made from photographs of figures in the Foro Mussolini (now Foro Italico), and the last is a sketch I made of Stephen, my partner since 1983, in the first months we met.
Assorted sculptures
The one on the left was hacked out in terracotta-tinted plaster, and used as a candle holder. The plate behind was a present from Barry Woods, an expert potter (although I believe he later abandoned the wheel to work for the BBC). The sculpture on the right, which I variously call 'dancer' and 'sprinter', is one of my best pieces but I only have a scanned picture.
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