A quick extruder tutorial

I feel that I should freely distribute some of my techniques. Why? Well the internet has been kind to me and I feel I should pass that forward.

Here is my take on the now classic extruder cane technique or Klimt Kane (see what I did there?)

Personally I like to work with three or four colours to generate an interesting repeating pattern and enough contrast to ensure the cane has a strong image even when reduced.

These are stacked discs cut using a small kemper cutter that matches the extruder barrel's diameter.

I use a Makins extruder and frankly it is the best moderately priced tool on the market for the job. The barrel is easy to clean, load and extrude because it uses a screwing motion rather than pressure.

As your cane is extruded it will wibble about everywhere, do not worry about that because we will straighten it all out shortly.

Also, bear in mind that the colour at the end will envelop the entire cane when stacking and extruding. Hurrah for fluid dynamics in arts and crafts!

Show your wobbly sausage who is boss by chopping it into equal lengths and arranging them together. I usually use a square stack and cane formation for ease.

Continue the polymer punishement by squashing the cane to eliminate air bubbles and ensure adhesion.

This is also a quick way to reduce the cane with relatively little distortion.

Ta daa! Une Cane :) Notice the uneven raw end, but we will be slicing that off shortly.

Reduce and recombine extruded cane elements to your hearts content :)

Then slice the buggers up and use them to create lovely things.

Ta very much folks :) Hope you enjoy!

Mwah x

Prince What a Mess

Do any of you know those books? 'Prince What A Mess'? They are about a very mucky afghan puppy


Anyways, my studio reminds me of those stories

 Been doing some serious production work and my studio erm, reflects this.











However, I think these chocolatey delights are worth it.

Big Sunday hugs

xx

One Month Later

So a month ago, today, my family buried our Mother.

It was actually a really lovely day and beautiful service. I will post about that at some point.

However, this is a post about some jewellery I made.

A while before she died Mum and I talked about making memento jewellery from fine silver using precious metal clay. It was so she could always be with us.

These are sculpey moulds of Mum's thumbprints. The piece on the far right is a thumb imprint made from the moulds. This was used to imprint the silver clay.

Silver clay rolled out ready to take the imprint.

Cutting out the clay around the thumbprints.

The pieces were dried and then filed/sanded to give them smooth edges before firing.

Fired in my kiln according to manufacturers instructions!

After firing the pieces have a fine white layer over them, this is the organic binder burning out of the clay.

Using a brass brush clean all the residue off :)












Mmmm liver of sulphur, guess what, it smells bad!
This is to put a patina on the silver and bring out the
thumbprints.

A lovely dark patina :)

After the patina is buffed off it settles in the cracks and voila, lovely shiny maternal thumbprints.

I made one for each of us. The one on the left uses an imprint mould and has my thumbprint in the back. That one is for me and now hangs on my necklace next to a pendant my sister bought me.







This is hardly my most detailed tutorial but happy to answer more specific questions in the comments.

Lots of hugs to you Purky Blurkers

xxx

Purky Packaging

From the beginning of Purky Products I had always intended to have shiny lovely packaging.

For many reasons, often financial, I put off designing and ordering.

My original logo was designed by Nikki Cox of Kiwi 2000 http://www.kiwi2000.com and she redesigned it to suit foil printing in a square.

I came home and found this box

And had to find something to open it!

And then said box was vanquished and inside there was.....!

A little beauty and soon all her friends came out to play!

And lets just finish with a whoop?

Very pleased with these. Roll on the Purky times.

Hugs everyone

xxx

Returning to my Blog

Its been somthing of a rough year so far.

Purky failed as a business, my relationship ended and my Mother has died.

After my last post, about something so important, I honestly did not know how to follow it.

These things however do not excuse me from active blogging and I apologise profusely to folks who have been waiting for an update.

I have been creative over the last month and taken literally hundreds of photos documenting my life and my work. There are several tutorials which I will get written up and released over this month.

A snap shot of pictures from the last month, just to give you some flavour.

Cute tame starling

My new adventures into indian cuisine

An important Purky project for the family in progress (full tutorial to follow eventually)

My beautiful sister on her wedding day

A gorgeous (late blooming) passion flower

My updated shrine, its a collation of things that are meaningful to me, though the skull candles are just for the ambiance of the thing....

New Purky display equipment and Phil supervising work in the new studio

New tile pendants, cufflinks and stud earrings about to be cured.

The night I met Lady Gaga...

New Revolution Pendants and new stud earrings.












I hope that gives you a flavour of what has been occuring in my life this month. I haven't included pictures from my Mother's funeral and other things like that.

I promise to return to regular blogging and my love and best wishes to all of you

Harry xx

Goodbye Mum

Nothing and everything to say really.  I was in Bournemouth at a friend’s house, having done a photoshoot the day before. I notice missed calls and followed them up.

Dad told me Mum was in Bath hospital and the end was nigh. I showered and contacted my sister. Loaded the car up and headed over.

About half an hour away from Bath I checked my text messages and saw that Mum was heading back to the nursing home. My sister and father managed to convince them to allow her to head back to the nursing home, my Mother sincerely did not wish to die in a hospital.

I somehow got their first and I know this, may sound bizarre, I wanted to take some photographs of her room. This was going to be the last place that she drew breath, it needed to be remembered.

I feel that in many ways that room was more homely than her house was at the end.  That moon was a present from Dad, I don't remember when it arrived in our lives but have always been very fond of it.

Some of her favourite objects surrounded her and pictures of her children on their graduation days looked down at her. The box frame on the left is her corsage from my brothers wedding.

A bit later on, I saw Mum being wheeled in on the bed and lurked in the lounge while the nurses and care staff transferred her back to her bed. A brief family conference before we headed in to see her.

Without meaning to sound brutal or callous, it was clear that her time was drawing to a close. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, there was no response to stimulus.

I left to have some breakfast and my sister and father, who had been up all night left to get some rest.

While I was waiting for my food to arrive (at the pub round the corner) my sister called to let me know that Mum had slipped away.

It feels like, she was waiting for that quiet moment of peace. Perhaps I am needlessly romanticising and that’s just the moment her heart stopped and her brain shut down. Although, in all honesty, I feel that she was probably holding on until she was alone, before she passed.

I finished my breakfast/tea and headed on back to the nursing home. Just a short walk.  My sister was on the phone making important calls to people to let them know. Dad was outside smoking.

I went into see her. Knocked on the door. Yeah, I know….

Anyway, she was laid there, the care staff had tidied the room around her and placed a flower on her chest. I had a few words…as you do I suppose. Kissed her upon the forehead. It was the strangest feeling, knowing that she couldn’t feel what I was doing. There was that momentary flash of fear that she might, well open her eyes and scream or something. I know that is ridiculous but her near death has been a recurring theme throughout my life.

Obviously, she didn’t stir. I took a heart shaped brooch I made in 2009 as an anniversary present for her (Dad has matching cufflinks) and placed it next to the flower. It was very odd walking away from her for the last time. I will not see her again. I presume her casket will have a closed lid.

For the first time in so long, my mother was peaceful.

I will miss her company and comfort and wisdom. She also had a wicked sense of humour.

But, I would gladly trade every shred of happiness she offered me for her peace and safety. Her body will never hurt and her mind will never be stressed ever again.

I am a grown man and I will be absolutely fine and capable and strong even without my Mother’s presence. 

As much as I will miss her.

She showed me how to be a person and I will continue to live honestly, expressively and joyously in her honour.

Lynn Joy Pursey 1948 - 2011

We love you

Harry xxx

The unethical vegan

This is my fridge full of nommy fruit and vegetables. Love fruit and veg and for the last two months been mostly subsisisting on frozen veggies, whole grain carbs like brown rice and pasta and frozen fish.

I have been enjoying my dairy products but trying out the soy alternatives.

They erm, don't taste of much to be honest so may just use them as fillers in my recipes rather than star attractions.

Will let you know how it goes.

Oh and the unethical bit? I don't think free range, organically ethically produced meat is that much of a problem, same with dairy products.

I am going to try veganism but I am still going to wear leather and all the rest of it.

Voila and all that :)