Intentional Stones

A little playing with pink

Thinking about color from last week, I was experiencing a bit of a dry patch at the bench, so I decided to jump right in. 

I had pink on my mind.  Several ideas I'd had before Mother's Day really wanted more pink beads and most of what I have is a pale peach pink.  Still it's a lovely color, so I grabbed everything I could find.  Pink's a color that can come in every darkness and hue.  Some pinks are very purple, while others are nearly orange.  Pink can be intense and pale.  They're all in the piece I completed.  

 

The donut beads contain a golden rutile and slashes of pink.  The pinks are tourmaline, which is more purple, quartz that's very pale and orangish.  I balanced the different tones with whites and greys of botswana agate and rainbow moonstone. 

Pink is a gentle color.  If you're "in the pink" you're at the height of good taste and quality.  It's a relaxing and content color.  It's also a big favorite of little girls everywhere.  (My daughter's wardrobe is at least half pink, only half because I shop for her.) 

Whenever I wear pink, which is rarely since I think it's not one of my best colors, I remember the childlish glee of a bubblegum ring. 

There are a lot of shapes in this necklace, geometric and rough.  I think my next experiment will have to do more with that aspect of the design. 

The necklace is very long-50 inches and can be worn long or looped around several times or knotted.  It has a sterling silver lobster clasp, just in case you want to wear it close to your neck. 

-Simbelmynë

 

Dragonfly

This piece turned into a crazy interjection of heavy and lightweight elements.  The assignment "necklace with a forged element" really seemed hard to me.  It was an assignment for Jewelry Making I.

I like to make delicate things- bubbles, bugs, chain...  But the shapes you get forging wire-long and thin, pointed pieces, weren't speaking to me.  All I could think of was hooks and curves, and those are fine as part of a necklace or bracelet, but not as a focal componant. 

And then the dragonfly idea struck me.  Forging a piece of grass, the long spindly tail of the bug, the legs.  Perfect. 

I started having so much fun I forged out the clasp as well!  And it all balances the heavy metal with delicate light elements. 

For class I've been working to challenge myself.  Not only to learn each technique as thoroughly as possible, but to encorporate as many techniques into each project as possible. 

Turns out this philosophy is crazy.

The extra parts- the chain, endcaps, intricate cut work wings-those took up time and when I hit a snag-getting all those pieces soldered together almost ended everything.  A bit of the tail burned off, I slightly damaged the wings.  Fortunately, the benefit of working on it for class, I could take it to my teacher, repeatedly, and she helped me get it down and all of the damage was repairable. 

I've got several potential designs that spring from this one.  Yay for education!

-Simbelmynë

 

Behind on the Runway

Clearly I would have been out weeks ago. (If I were the brave kind of person who'd try out for a reality show)

We've been watching, thinking and sketching.  At the party store (episode 3 season 8) I would be going the direction the winner went.  Paper!  Though I'd be into the confetti too:

Making beads isn't something I've tried, but I'm an old hand with paper and adhesives.  Laminating layers of color together would make a fun bead.  Including confettin in the mix would give it the necessary bling factor. 

Or I could use confetti as beads to sparkle things up.  Our party store also had statuary and trinket gifts.  Lots of fun just taken apart to be focal elements.

Episode 4's hats struck a real cord with me.  I started making jewelry because of masks, and maskmaking and haberdashery are close cousins.  There are so many fabulous hats to look at on the web.  I found a stunning flock of butterflies -shall we pretend this hat is my choice?  

I would look to the flowers.  Milkweed.  Dangling earrings or a necklace with a cluster of blossoms.

The last episode we worked on is the Team Challenge, Episode 5.  A major exercize in collaboration.  Each team was instructed to create a line of 6 looks that go together.   It turned out that the teams had different levels of success, in fact one team was really successful and the other almost completely failed.  The difference came from respect.  One team, the underdogs, was able to respect one another and keep lines of communication open, while the other, the team with 4 challenge winners, could not manage even a little bit of respect and tried to pin all of their failures on one team member.  It was sad.

Mina and I are very much thinking about collaboration lately.  Mina gave me this sketch:

An idea she had, inspired by the lovely mother of pearl art nouveau necklace. It seems quite doable.  We discussed shapes and available stones and means of attaching this focal piece to a necklace with chain and beads.  I only hope I can do justice to her design and that my knowledge of construction can make her vision possible.  One thing that helps me be confident in our success is Mina and I respect one another's talants and we can communicate very well about design and changes. 

-Simbelmynë

Loop-in-Loop Chain

I finally have a chain I'm comfortable with.  The loop in loop is pretty easy to create.  The ends of carefully cut fine silver wire fuses when a torch is applied to it.  So I don't need to mess with tiny pieces of solder for this chain. 

Once they're closed, the links are elongated and then folded in half, pinching the ends together, and then hooked into the last link of the chain.  It's so easy!

I'm still working on my jumpring sawing technique.  I'm finding that an unreasonably small saw-(easy to break) makes it easier to keep the shape of the link and saw evenly. 

I'm also gaining more appreciation for masking tape as I use the very soft fine silver wire.  Next time I'll harden it more before I start shaping the rings, still it seems to remain softer than the sterling. 

This is a very thick chain.  Most suitable for wearing alone or with a substantial pendant.  I like this particular one, made from 22 gauge wire, because it's very light weight.  Large stone pendants can be very heavy.  It's nice to have a lighter necklace sturdy enough to carry one proudly.

I'm confident enough with it that I think I'll start experimenting with shaping the links for a more elegant look in future chains. I also think it's time to try a more standard shaped chain again.  The Little Torch is helping me with control in the tiny spaces involved in chain making.

Art Nouveau still speaks to modern tastes

I've always been a fan of the Art Nouveau period.  The fluid shapes and natural inspirations appeal to me.  The style's sense of Romanticism evokes a distant time when things were slower and people dressed for dinner.  (Not that I'd want to live then or anything.  I'm kind of a fan of the whole voting thing.)  As I was scanning my regular vintage fashion feeds yesterday, I stumbled upon this little beauty.

I'm not even sure where to start gushing about this necklace.  The first thing I noticed was the way the chain fits through the pendants.  While I'm certain the two side pieces are anchored so the necklace maintains its balance, they appear to float freely.  The abalone shell glows so strongly that Simbelmyne asked if they were really opal.  The pendants all have the fluid, elegant shapes typical of the period and although I'm not usually a fan of gold, it really works here to pick out the gold in the abalone.

The finished necklace comes across as quite opulent but if you look more closely, the findings are surprisingly simple wire wraps using stick pearls.  I'm not even completely sure the clasp bit is soldered.  The two pearl accents certainly aren't.   The baroque pearl drops are on simple pins with no additional decoration to detract from the pearls themselves.  The contrast between the simplicity of the findings and the elegance of the pendants lends to the romantic feel of the necklace.

Simbelmyne has been after me to 'commission' findings from her.  I think a few links similar to the pearl ones might be in order.  Oh PARTNER???

Where are they now?

Minor celebrities: These are pieces that seem to get a lot of attention when they're out on the table, and still they haven't sold! 

By Simbelmynë Kambaba jasper, dumortierite, aventurine and white howlite.  clasp and pendant are fabulous bead show finds, wire detail is hand made.

Here's the Listing!

Mina's piece:  Lapis Lazuli, pearl and sterling silver beads and toggle.

Lapis in Waves

In which we discuss individual pieces

Mina's Lovely two strand necklace of amethyst, moonstone and pearl

Simbelmynë's pale amethyst and rose quartz scarab bracelet

Sunshine and Happiness

Mina and I shall discuss in the comments our own piece and the other artist's piece. Please, if a particular piece strikes you, say why in the comments?

Paint Me A Necklace?

One of the great truths of art is that inspiration comes from the strangest places.  One of my more favorite blogs, Humblebeads, routinely posts a painting for the readers to use as inspiration.    You can use the colors or the shapes or the textures or even just the mood of the piece.  It's meant as a jumping off place.  (You can go back through their challenges and what they've come up with here.  There are some really lovely things.)  I look at them every month, convince myself that I should do something with it, and then....life.  It happens.

I did manage to make something partly inspired by something I saw in a magazine, partly inspired by my love of Faberge's designs, and partly just because I adore rich, peacock blues.

I wish I was a good enough photographer to capture the shimmer in all these stones.  The blue labradorite is alive and the iolite drop has the most surprising inclusions which make it look like falling water.  As I worked with it, I worried that combined with the dark blue dyed pearls and the sterling disks, that the necklace was too dark.  Once it was done, I was pleased with it, I knew the ornateness of the centerpiece could support the heaviness of the stones.

In the course of my routine blog reading, I also read a blog unfashionably called Fuck Yeah, Victorians.  (If you go look, be warned, it isn't always work safe.  Those Victorians were a nasty bunch behind closed doors.)    This morning I flipped through a series of Victorian fashion plates, news items, and vintage photos of famous people only to find this:

 

Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse

It's all there, everything I feel when I look at the necklace--the weight of the blues, the motion inside the iolite, the motion of the drop itself.  Even the overall darkness is there.  I can't say that painting inspired the necklace.  I've seen the painting before, but not for ages.  Instead I come away feeling a connection to an aesthetic.  I come away feeling connected to artists that came before me.

Even if I can never aspire to their greatness, I'm still connected.  It's a good feeling.

--Mina

Collaboration begins

Mina and I are starting to work together more and more.  I'm making findings for her, I'll be sending pendants her way (she made this one, it's totally pretty!)  This one starts simple, but I can see some pretty amazing work ahead of us.

This could get interesting, since we work in vastly different ways and materials. 

-Simbelmynë

It's Springtime in my Heart

For this year's Progressive Dinner I wanted to make something special to wear, since I drew wine for my contribution, and so didn't get to cook something fancy.

 

I'm so excited, I think it turned out very well.  The flowers really were a learning experience, using my flex shaft, oxydizing, sawing technique... 

Ok, Gotta run!

-Simbelmynë