Year Of Jewelry Challenge: Week 1

About a year or so ago I started running across blog postings by various jewelry artists I really respect, and noticed they would post "Year of Jewelry" entries. Last month I was lucky enough to find out from Nancy Wickman of Wickwire Jewelry that there was another one starting up for 2011!

The Year of Jewelry Challenge is to create and post a new piece of jewelry every week. My personal challenge is to stick with this and to learn a lot more about the creation of jewelry and its various techniques.

The theme for Week 1 is “New Beginnings”, and decided what I've been playing with in the lessons from Jodi Bombardier's new book "Weave, Wrap, Coil" would be appropriate. The ring is the first woven wire ring I have ever made (and the jury is still out to whether I enjoyed it or not) and the other piece is part of one of the necklace projects. While I'm pleased with the weaving on this piece (and it was a challenge to weave to a narrower point!) the symmetry is off on the frame. So, this will likely become the dangle on a forged copper bookmark or something.

Couple New-ish pieces

Another fun use for the Skull design I created some time back… earrings!

This time I cut the skulls out of copper, and riveted them to brass using sterling wire. Details were added to the skulls using the Dremel engraver. I polished the entire thing to a high shine, then decided to dip them into liver of sulfur to give them that antiqued look.

My friend and occasional coworker commissioned me to make this necklace for his mom for Christmas. Since she is a big fan of the Grateful Dead we decided a Peace symbol would be appropriate. After some trial and error, then going off in a direction that I needed to steer my way back out of, this is the result:

 Woven peace symbol on a hammered frame. Copper wire, with amethyst, laboradorite, carnelian, sunstone & moonstone. All the stones tie in astrologically with the members of the family. Ended up making the chain too, because pairing this piece with a commercially made chain looked, well, wrong. Wasn't originally part of what I was going to make, but it was a matter of pride, and since both my friend and his mom are both really good people, worth the extra effort.

Multiple shots, because I'm experimenting with different ways of photographing my jewelry to see what showcases it the best for the pieces that will be posted on ArtFire soon.

Makes me glad I've held on to these crystals over the years. 

Plain white background is ok, but I'm still at a loss on photographing a piece without any "props". Ah well, its all a learning process.

Pinstriped Motorcycle Helmet

I had the opportunity to lay some lines on this flat black  motorcycle helmet at Billetproof. Ended up having to take it home to finish due to high humidity & the helmet owner's desire to leave the show before I was finished.

Lettering by Ron Miller. Pinstriping by me.

Jewelry Photo Blitz

Most of the time I end up putting off photographing the pieces of jewelry I am working on until I have a larger quantity to photograph, then shoot them all in one big blitz. Here is the latest batch of pieces I was working on following a number of tutorials I had purchased to learn new techniques:

First we have a couple pendants made using the techniques in Donna Spadafore’s “Caged Bird’s Song” tutorial.

I really learn a lot about wire weaving from Donna’s tutorials. Here is a piece using her “Woven Wire Cage” tutorial.

And one from the “Odyssey” tute.

Abby Hook’s “Love Pendants” tutorial provided the technique for this Celtic knot pendant. I had attempted the other one in the tutorial, but it ended up residing in my “fail bucket”. It happens.

Had a lot of fun creating this bracelet using Donna Esposito’s “Etruscan Scale Bracelet” tutorial. The blue quartz beads really glow against the copper. Great dye job on those beads!

A large stone bead wrapped playing with the techniques in Danagonia’s “Nugget Bead Framing” tutorial.

Nancy Wickman, aka “Wickwire” share a lovely tutorial for a Woven Pendant on her blog. This is my result.

Last, but by no means least, a pair of earrings I designed and created to complement a bracelet I posted a while back.

The Fall Semester just started up this week, and I am taking the jewelry fabrication class again. I am very excited about what I will be learning in this class. I plan on doing a lot more bezel setting, some enameling, and hoping to start doing more metal shaping too.

In other news, I just started doing some part time production work for another jewelry artist. I am very excited about this because I get to work with a jewelry designer whose work I have been a fan of for a while, and gives me an opportunity to learn more about production work on multiple pieces.

A Little T & A (aka Sometimes I Stripe on Cars)

So far in the past couple months I've had the opportunity to pinstripe a couple fantastic cars.

First we have this really cool 1923 Model T:

Painting down low... its a challenge!

So is painting in awkward places.

The finished product. Striping subtle, but enhancing to the hot rod.

Then we move on to an absolutely gorgeous 1929 Model A:

Cue the “We're not WORTHY” moment from “Wayne’s World”, because that is how I felt.

Then I had to open my big mouth about body lines. Marcus says, “Oh, what a great idea! Go for it!” *Gulp!*

Nice long back piece.

All cleaned up and some outdoor shots:

Special thanks to Marcus Edell for the photos, and for challenging me with these beauties!