Greg doesn't wear much jewelry and I would be afraid to make him something in case he wouldn't like it. I haven't made him anything. This summer I took a raising class. That sounds funny because I already "raised" him. I decided to make him a bowl for Christmas.
Raising is taking a flat piece of metal and hammering it on metal stakes until it curves and forms a bowl. There is a lot of hammering, blood (as in hammering your digits), sweat and tears (as when you poke a hole in your bowl). I tend to hammer so much I thin the metal and I get small tears in them. I try to mend them by soldering the tear closed. If I just left the bowl plain that generally works but I took another class by the same teacher and he teaches how to chase on vessels. It's impossible to chase when you have a hole in the vessel. You have to fill the vessel with a microcrystalline wax so that the vessel will have the strength to hold up to the hammering with chasing tools. So if you have a hole, the hot wax will dribble out the hole. I know, because it happened to me. Not fun...
Chasing is done by using small tools and hammering on the bowls that are filled with wax. You make indentations that look like areas are recessed and other areas are higher. Then you texture them. Or you can make "pictures" such as olive branches or ivy. Again, I go over areas so much that I thin the metal and I punch a hole through the metal, then I cry which is what I did on the first vessel I did for Greg. In order to save time I purchased a spun vessel. It is amazing what machines can do. It's all magic to me. You will hear that word a lot from me. If I don't do it or understand it, it is magic. There are machines that take flat pieces of metal that spin until they form bowls. I then chased on that bowl so I feel I kind of cheated on Greg's. Here is the state his bowl is in three days from Christmas:
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