Color in Jewelry

admin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:05:51 +0000

People think primarily of precious gems when they think of color in jewelry, but there are so many other possibilities.

Patinas with chemicals, heat (makes copper red)
Mosaic of glass seed beads.
Prismacolor pencils on oxidized metal.
Use of found objects such as colored porcelain shards

How many ways can you come up with?

-Duffy

New Directions: Wall sculpture, small sculpture

admin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:13:00 +0000

I think it might be fun to add a new line to the things to sell and eventually do that only. I like things for the house. Wall sculpture, hangings, garden sculpture. There’s just so much jewelry and not so much original art for the wall. Not sculptural things, anyway. I am going to start this week.
I’ve started making a picture frame for a show I am going to be in next month. I have to frame a piece of jewelry in a 12″x12″ frame. Since I use a lot of copper, I am covering and extending a nicely shaped frame I found in a garage sale yesterday, but it’s too small. I’m cutting out the copper in four mitered pieces and hammering each piece to give it texture. then nailing them to the wood frame with tiny little brass escutcheon pins. I’ve gotten two sides done and it’s coming along pretty well. Then I think I’ll put an aqua patina on it . It’s a pretty large expanse of copper to leave as is. I can see this as a start to the wall sculpture thing. The frame is the primary interest, then put a small assemblage in the center. I’m folding under the edges of the frame to give it more stiffness. I think this metal I’m using is about 22 to 24 gauge. I can think of a lot of ways to decorate future frames. Etch, hammer more, but that’s really exhausting. I think I could buy molding to make a base for it so it would have some curviness. I would like that more than just a boxy thing…

Other materials I’m thinking about are :

concrete patch….like one I did in a Penland class. Put a little mirror on it and some ceramic for a little mosaic and strips of copper I swirled around and just the edge showing.

Hardware cloth as a base, larger squares. Repeat elements on it.

CLOCKS!!! Like the woman I did at Penland. It was a little sculpture. Slate base, copper tubing legs, copper tube face and wire hair and face. a black square of counter top sample. clock mechanism. It was so cute. I should look for a picture of it.

Mosaics as one element. especially for yard sculpture.

Collect more found objects. I need to find some junk yards. I don’t want to do anything too large that would be hard to tote around or ship.

Tagua nuts: I’ve got to get some ideas for carving them. They’re like ivory, so nesuke comes to mind. I should go google that.

Themes to consider…..primitive/jungle, animals with people, make smaller elements that can
be combined. Like the black “egg” as a seed pod with foliage around it. I wonder where Madalyn gets her brass leaves and stuff. I need to google again and also look at the metal books.

Well, this is a starting point. I’m doing this form my own use but I guess it helps to see how people work, so if it helps anyone, good.

Bead Mosaic Tutorial

admin — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

These are examples of “glass bead mosaic”. Mary Kanda is the artist who originated this method of working. I was in her first class at Penland Craft School in North Carolina. There are a lot of uses for this technique. It can be just a small element of a larger design or the main element. I like to use the little silver danglies with it because I don’t really have the sophisticated color sence that Mary Kanda does.

1. First we need the “box” in which to put the mosaic. You can purchase little silver boxes from Rio Grande that are for holding stones. The walls should be no more than 1mm high, though. I make my own shapes in which to put the mosaic. Mary Kanda likes to use leaf shapes . I like more abstract shapes. Anyway, I use 24 gauge silver sheet and either rectangular wire (1mm wide.) or 14 gauge square wire. Make your shape from the wire, solder the ends together, then solder the shape to the sheet. Trim around the shape,file,and sand to a fair-the-well. This is the step that drives me nuts. Totally finish the piece before setting the first bead.

2. Now is the time to collect the beads. I use size 11 glass seed beads that come on hanks of string. You really have to have them on a string or you will be spending your life unwisely. It would have to be a really tiny piece for you to set each bead individually. You will be gluing the beads into the box with carpenter’s wood glue. This just keeps them steady . The grout will actually hold them in permanently. Put the glue down in tiny rows with a small brush. lay a row of beads into the glue and as you are holding the beads down with a finger, pull the string out of the beads. Did I say this was easy? No. It is tedious and time consuming. You may curse me before your project is over, but I hope not. When all the beads are down and you’ve wedged the last little one in, then you prepare the tile grout.

3. The grout you want is unsanded. Dap was the brand recommended to me but I couldn’t find it . I don’t think it really matters. I buy the kind that is already black, but you can get white and add acrilyc paint into it to color it. Put about a 1/4 cup of the dry grout into a paper cup and drip water into it until, when stirred up, it is the consistency of peanut butter. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. Now is the hard part. You must get a small amount of the grout on a coffee stirrer stick or your finger and apply it to the top of your piece. It is essential that you don’t let the little beads move or their holes will show . This is not easy. Carefully push the grout around, working it into the beads. DO NOT PICK UP YOUR FINGER! You slide your finger off the side of the piece or all the little beads will come out with your finger. You don’t want that to happen! It may take some practice. Start with small pieces first.

4. After getting the grout into the piece, you must now carefully wipe off excess. I use a damp paper towl to do this. Don’t be too agressive with this, but the little beads do have to show. Let it dry for about an hour and rub a little more agressively. Then let dry. It takes a few days for the grout to really set up hard, so be careful with it. It will be dry before that, but not totally cured.

Riveting Rivets…

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:16:00 +0000

I did a lot of cold connections before I could solder, but I still love them. Especially since they can do connections with materials that wouldn’t stand up to the heat involved with soldering. Until I figure out how to use other people’s pictures, I will just have to use mine as examples:

Riveted Pendant

Riveted Pin

Riveted Earrings

In the first example, I connected this blackened steel to the silver backing with tiny brass escutcheon pins. I couldn’t have soldered the blackened steel.

The second example is another colored steel, but this time I colored rusted steel and did silver tube rivets in the holes in the steel strip. These rivets didn’t connect anything, they were just a decorative element. I used the little brass rivets to connect it to the silver back. Instead of connecting it directly to the back, though, I used tiny silver tubes between the two pieces to give it some elevation.

The third piece is another example of using the little silver tubes to raise the top piece above the backing. This way I could slip the shell and twigs between the two pieces and that helped contain the things.

Another thing about rivets is that they can allow two pieces to swivel if you leave a little space between the two layers to be connected. You can use a little piece of paper to act as spacer, then you remove it to allow the swiveling. I don’t have any examples of this now, but I’ll post more later!