Last 9 letters for 2010

Over the last week I have had to do some catch up with ALAW. Today I managed to finish the last five letters. However I did not post my letters for last month so I am posting 9 letters today.

Today I have also managed to bend all the letters into their bird shape so hopefully over the next couple of days I will be able to construct my flight of letters piece. It has been good to see so many people getting their letters in and amazing to see the colours, shapes and variety of approaches to the second alphabet.

Behind the Q ball

I talked to Fiona about where I should be up to in my letters and she said Q - so I was 5 letters behind and so have had to do five letters this week. So there they are below.


Barry Smith © M-Q ALAW

I still have to fold the letters yet into their 'bird form'. I thought I'd test to see how the bird forms would look on the wires and rusted iron wedge. The photo below shows a test run of Letters in Flight.

Barry Smith © Letters in Flight1

I think at the end the flock of 26 letters will look OK.

Rusty letters for September

Phew! Sometimes one just needs a bit of a reminder about one's letters. Anyway this month I had to do all four in one creative sitting - so not quite a letter a week but still on track with a little catch up.

So here are my four for September - I am still engraving Chiller font letters into rusted iron sheeting.

What I have also managed to do is to source and buy five rusted and beaten timber splitting wedges that will become the base for my letters in flight final piece for this second alphabet. As you can see from the original diagram I have changed it a bit in that I am not going to use a single platform but rather the collective wedges.

Spring letters

Spring visited us today - a lovely mild sunny day - what better day to post my next set of letters.


You might recall for this second alphabet I have moved away from shiny brass to shiny letters on a rusted background. I am using a font called Chiller; and I am engraving through the rust into the metal below. To keep the shine of the letters I am coating it all with a matte art varnish.



The letters will become part of an installation called something like letters in flight; or a flock of letters.

Letters on a rusted square

For my second alphabet I have chosen to use a font called Chiller. I chose it because it is reasonably free form and looks something like letters that are created by using a brush dipped in ink.

I have also chosen to work on squares of rusted thin metal sheets we had collected from the roadside collection. I am going to engrave the letters onto the metal and treat it with fixative as I want the contrast of the newly revealed metal against the rust.

I then will bend each square diagonally to create a shape that suggests a bird in flight.

The final piece I create from the whole alphabet will be like a flock of birds in flight.