Joan Bolton King

Christopher has successfully made simple mobiles, which are very easily balanced, and his methods and leaf motif are also very effective when used on more complicated designs: - where several sections mutually balance each other. (See photos)

He made card templates from suitable leaves and used this to draw out the shapes on 0.5mm copper sheet, indenting the vein lines with a biro and piercing a small hole from which to hang them. Several were cut out with stout nail scissors and prepared for enamelling - using a variety of types of enamel. Flux was used under most transparent enamels to improve the colour; also, by using opaque on the reverse, he could do away with the need for pickling. These were fired smooth, but the edges left black. Christopher made a holding ring by soft soldering "garden wire" and from this he hung a fine silver wire thread (possibly 28 gauge beading wire from craft shops). This would support a series of horizontal thicker wires (jewellers' iron binding wire - about 0.5mm, but chosen to be compatible with the size of the bead's hole).