A Yurt!

Crooked House. Copper, Brass, Patina, Lacquer. House & Photo by Emily Wiser

My instructor at my jewelry school mentioned in passing today that she had a pet sheep. Every year her sheep needed to be shorn. She didn't know what to do with all of that wool! She tried to give it away to the Kindergarten so the children could do crafts. It turned out that even the Kindergarten couldn't use a whole sheep's worth of wool every year! She began to make diamond and dyed felted jewelry, which I think sounds just fabulous. Then she told us that she finally got together with a friend and they took all those years' worth of wool and made a yurt (a traditional Mongolian house)! Imagine that! A fantastically dyed, bright purple and pink and red and orange yurt! I can't stop thinking about it. I really want to get my own pet sheep and make my own yurt.

While I'm slowly working on the yurt, you can see a photo of my own little portable house, which I made out of copper in the photo above. I've engraved every single bit of it with the nursery rhyme "The Crooked House."

Above & below: close-ups of my Crooked House. Photos & House by Emily Wiser.

In The Studio: Engraving Copper Plates

Above: Gravers, India Stone (for sharpening gravers). Photo & gravers by Emily Wiser

I recently took an engraving class, where we learned to engrave copper plates by hand. It's great practice for my engraved book and for learning to hand-engrave jewelry. You can also set stones with gravers. We had to make our own gravers. Here's some photos of my engraving tools. my copper plate, and the print I made from it.

Above: Engraved Copper Plates. I engraved them by hand with the gravers shown above. Photo & plates by Emily Wiser.

Above: A block print from the engraved copper plate. I inked it by hand, wet paper, and pressed it down on the engraved plate.
Photo & print by Emily Wiser.