Drips & Circles...

A fresh batch of earrings...  and introducing my Drips...

Wide Drips in Sterling Silver with pale blue Amazonite.

Mini Drips in Sterling Silver with Heat Treated Coral
(heat treating brings out the orange color).

Circled Stones in Sterling Silver with Leopard Jasper.

Wide Drips in Sterling Silver with black/grey Amazonite.

Mini Drips in Sterling Silver with Apatite.

Circled Stones in Sterling Silver with dyed Blue Impression Jasper.

Another Path in the Garden...

A couple years ago I created one of my most difficult pieces... I learned a lot but at the time thought "I'm never doing this again!!"... and then, a family member asked me to recreate the piece with a couple variations... I couldn't say no... So...

Here is Garden Path II:

This is her predecessor (with earrings), so you can see the variations...

I was asked to use different colored stones which were a bit larger, but keep the piece the same overall size.  I was also asked to do a different sort of "leaf", and no earrings were requested.

Here's some pictures of the work as it was in process...

Using previous instructions from my first Garden Path,
 I cut heavy 1/2 round wire to size.

The Amazonite stones that had been selected, laid out in order.

Working on the leaves, the left is a rough-cut, the right is shaped/formed.

Leaves with their stems soldered in place.

Ready to shape some of the heavy wire.

Grinding down the heavy wire to form a tight solder joint.

She's taking shape.

Soldering the last piece of heavy wire in place.

Main Body soldered together.

Leaves soldered in place, Bezels created.

I only had 1 mishap... actually a series of mishaps... it was the first time I tried to solder the bezels in place... I got it figured out eventually...

Bezels soldered in place, ready to set the stones.

Stones set, ready for her sanding & polishing, then for a chain.

Here she is again, in final form...

Two New Pieces Completed Today...

Most times I've got several things going at a time, this time I just happened to finish two pieces on the same day (thanks to a treatment that had to dry on one)...

First: "Grounded" - a Mountain scene...

"Grounded" - Sterling & Fine Silver, Morrisite (from Oregon),
with "boulders" of Shibuichi (a blend of Copper & Silver).

I purposefully exposed the "boulders" to a warm humid environ in order to obtain the interesting gold-ish color.   The Shibiuchi was then treated with a protective coating to preserve the color.

"Grounded" - angled view.

Second: "Aspire" - an modernistic piece... not sure why I picked this name for her, it just seemed to fit.

"Aspire" - Sterling & Fine Silver, Bumble Bee Jasper,
with spheres of Fine Silver.

"Aspire" - angled view.

An Homage to a Favorite Kid's Book

This is my April Art Challenge piece.  The Format was Box/Diorama/Container, the Theme was Literature/Film...

Introducing my little friend "Charlotte", Wilbur's BFF & loved by children everywhere... Thank You E.B.White for giving kids a lovable & articulate arachnid...

"Charlotte" - Sterling Silver with Fine Silver Spheres.

View from the side of "Charlotte".

"Charlotte" posed quite nicely for her closeup...

As a kid "Charlotte's Web" was one of my favorite books...

Here & Gone in a flash...

I didn't even get a chance to post this to my blog before she was sold... that's never happened before... so as I write this I have a huge smile on my face (sales are slow for me), but this girl has already found her forever home...

I put this piece together whilst working on parts for a more complex piece... The center is a bit repurposed from my January Art Challenge piece... It is Art Paper of a Paris post mark mounted on Copper with a gel coating & Fine Silver Bezel; otherwise it's Sterling Silver, with textured Hears & Butterflies.

I've named her "Paris" (pronounced with the proper French pronunciation of course)... a nice piece to wear on a leisurely stroll down the Champs-Élysées... ah, so romantic...

A Long Time Coming...

This is the story of a stone... a beautiful Ocean Jasper cabochon that I simply "had to have".  Ocean Jasper is one of those stones that really calls to me (when its a lovely specimen), but can be a bit expensive compared to the other stones I work with... so I bought this stone about 2 years ago (??) and I drew out a design shortly after that, but I wasn't quite ready to get started on it then...

In this first picture (above) you get a decent look at the stone (though the color on this photo isn't very good), and I'm starting to make the "frame" for the setting.

In this second picture are some spheres I've made out of Silver, Copper, and a mix of Silver & Copper called Shibuichi (custom mixed).  I had read about melting silver & copper together to end up with yellow/pink-ish colors...

Above you see my frame starting to take place, my various spheres I've made, and my rough drawing with notes...

Here the metalwork is all soldered (this took many steps), but the metal is not yet cleaned - you can see how oxidized the Copper & Shibuichi spheres can get...

Here the metal has been cleaned (still needs final buff & polish) and the stone is ready to set into the bezel.  That white stuff it's setting on is Jett Set, it hold things in place for setting a backless bezel (my preference).

The final piece.  I made a custom bail, I also coated the spheres with a protective coating to keep the Copper and Shibuichi from oxidizing.

A close-up, I decided to show the cavities on two of the spheres, it seems to mimic the stone & also reveals the nature of the item being hand made (not machine manufactured).

I named her "Tranquility", this is by far my most expensive piece to date due to both the expense of materials & the time/difficulty of the piece, I'm offering her at $460.

Attempting to paint...

I am not a painter... but I am a doodler...

This piece was done as part of an Art Challenge group I belong to, this month we were told our medium was Paint...

So, I got a small sheet of Polycarbonate, cut it roughly to shape with a jeweler's hand saw, used some grinding/sanding tools to get the shape more fine tuned... Then I mixed colors & painted based on a doodle of mine, I painted this with toothpicks.  I sealed it with a spray sealer, applied a gel coat... Then I formed custom jump pieces out of 20 guage silver wire & put together a chain... photographs are taken on a variety of cloth backgrounds.  The piece is less than 4" across.

"In the Garden" - folk art necklace.