Year Of Jewelry Challenge: Week 5

The theme for the Year of Jewelry Challenge, Week 5 was “Down & Dirty”. This tied in perfectly with the chasing & repoussé I had been learning thanks to the guest instructor in my jewelry class. Since the method we were learning involved putting the metal in a bowl of pitch, and the methods used to extract the metal from the pitch and the involved cleanup were all very messy, I figured it couldn’t get much messier than that.

Session 1 consisted of a bit of repoussé:

Session 2 was a bit more repoussé, then flipping it over for some chasing:

Session 3 was the final class, and I had a couple more passes with the chasing before I had to remove it from the pitch and clean it up:

For the final session I brought in my plastic human skull model to give me a better idea of the depth and planes while I was hammering. Made things a bit easier to think out.

I have to say, I LOVE this technique, and can’t wait to have the opportunity to play with it again.