Producing Contemporary Organic Jewellery: Inspiration

Burn out casting is a page on Instagram that casts from actual plants. Instead of making the object in metal and then making a mold which will then be wax injected; they used the plant itself so that the casting will be an exact replica of the plant. I found it very interesting that casting can be done without wax injecting first and that the plant will burn out. The only problem with this is that you won't know if the plant has completely burnt out until after you pour the metal for the cast. The investment for casting can make the plant petals move as the petals are soft. I found an article on Genoksin, a jewellery making resource website, about casting an actual orchid and they suggest putting the flower into the fridge so that the petals are stiff. This will prevent the petals from moving when poring the investment into the flask that needs to go into the kiln. Not all organic materials will burn out so making cold silicone molds can be useful. Burning out plants for casting is a technique I want to try at some point, especially as casted objects can be enameled on as they have no solder joins.