Really old work

I thought it would be fun to show some of my really old pieces, dating back to when I was learning silversmithing in the early 90's. My favorite way of working back then was repousse', which involves sheet metal (in my case usually sterling silver), a bowl of pine pitch, a hammer and assorted chisels and punches. You heat the pitch up with a torch, put the metal in and start hammering out your form from the back. You have to pull the piece out of the pitch and anneal it fairly often, so it's a very time consuming process. The pitch supports the piece but is soft enough that you can create form in the sheet. Once the form was starting to develop, I would turn it over and work from the front, adding all the lines and detail (known as chasing) with fine chisels. And then anneal it, flip it over and work from the back more. And then anneal it and flip it over and work from the front. On and on. I quite like this Rhino, but not as jewelry since it is HUGE - about 3" across. The second photo is of the back, so you can see how it was hammered.