cuttlefish casting

(photo courtesy of Greenpeace)

Today was the 2nd day of my Casting I class and it was SO much fun. For the first part of class we're learning about casting with cuttlefish because it is very simple and basic.

Via Wikipedia the Cuttlefish are marine animals of the order Sepiida. They belong to the class Cephalopoda (which also includes squid, octopuses, and nautiluses). Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but molluscs. Recent studies indicate that cuttlefish are among the most intelligent invertebrates.^[1] Cuttlefish also have one of the largest brain-to-body size ratios of all invertebrates.

The great thing about cuttlefish is you simple design a negative relief design in the bone (it's a powdery substance) and what you pour in (silver is best) is your positive relief.

This is just one of my designs that is going to be a brooch with black coral (perfect timing!) and red coral.
Irene, my classmate, is heating up the silver. Our larger torch kept blowing out so grad student Abigail Heuss (our instructor, Tim Lazure's assistant) loaned us hers. She's a great teacher!
Above are sketches of my three projects; a brooch (the cuttlefish carve out above), a brooch/pendant and a black coral ring.

I completely forgot to snap photos of the casting I did, I'll get those tomorrow. I can't wait to get going! Pin It