Developing the shapes and forms for the Tinsmith workshop commission

Making models from the Tinsmith's templates

Today Ive been cutting, and making models out of the drawings I made around the Tinsmith templates on my visit to the museum in December.  I've been enjoying exploring how the flat shapes evolve in to three- dimensional forms and feel excited at the prospect of using these forms together, to create ideas for my commission in metal for the Tinsmith's workshop.

 The remnants of paper left over when cutting out the template drawings, and the resulting templates.....

Circles cut out of some of the cardboard templates.  These holes were used to string the metal and cardboard templates together in the Tinsmith's workshop.

 Scratches made by my knife on the cutting board when cutting out the circles, remind me of the marks made by hammer-blows on the lead forming blocks in the Tinsmith's workshop.  I'm fascinated by these discarded traces of making processes, which also include, for example, the remnants of metal left over when cutting out one of the metal 'parts' for a tin kettle.  My interest here, lies in the relationship between the paper circles and the subsequent cutting marks made on the cutting board, between the metal 'part' and the sheet it was cut out of, between the positive and negative, and the used and unused.




These paper forms reveal what the Tinsmith's templates would have been used to create in tin, before soldering together to create tin kettles, for example.