Egyptian Paste

Just finished soldering my last granules to the tube.  Now I have to use the magical "Egyptian Paste" to make sure the porcelain stays attached to the metal!
But wait, theres more....
When I glazed the porcelain, I needed to put  two little dabs of glaze resistant clay to the bottom of the spoon so that it wouldn't stick to the kiln shelf.  I've sanded the areas, but they are white and distracting.  The epoxy that I use is food safe and dark grey.  I forgot about fixing this until now, but it is leading me into new and exciting possibilities!!!

Tube Makin'

Finally got my spoons made, glazed and out of the kiln.  I glazed white, black and blue spoons and decided to go with black.  I think that this will compliment the metals the nicest. 
Now, I'm chasing a tube form as the handle.  I decided to chase a hollow form because my reference is a very colorful lizard, with a lot of texture.  There are going to be two layers in the tube, the underneath will be brass, which will be enveloped in copper. along the seam, there will be silver accents.

Spoon Glazin'

Yesterday, I glazed all my spoons up and they are firing to cone 10 right now.  I chose my favorite one, but glazed seven, just in case I break one...or six. 

Waiting.

Over the past week, I made several spoons that vary in size and texture.  They are in a bisque right now and are almost ready to unload.  I was hoping I would be able to take them out before or during class, but the kiln is still over 500 degrees....looks like I'll have to wait.
By the end of the day, I'll be able to start forming my spiculums for the handle.

Run Rabbit!

This is not really related to jewelry in any way, but I'm so excited about it, I'm sure there will be a sculpture coming soon!



Final Project: Spoon

The final project is a bit of a challenge because it needs to actually function.  We are making spoons.  Therefore, we need to consider what metals we can eat off of (silver) and how to construct the bowl of the spoon.  I plan on making the bowl of my spoon out of porcelain, which will be held by a silver stem.  Porcelain is very strong and will be food safe.  Hopefully, this will prevent any bending that might happen if I were to use fine silver as the bowl of the piece. 
My theme is reptiles and I stumbled across this pretty cool family of lizards.  They come in all different colors and they are all very interesting to me.  They are called Anolis Lizards.



NCECA Seattle

NCECA is for ceramics, but it was refreshing and gave me some good ideas across the board.  Here are some pictures that I took.

This is at the Aquarium

This is a wall of gum.

The sign in the back says "Help save our oceans, eat meat."  Looks pretty appetizing...

And here are some images from the train.

Somewhere between North Dakota and Montana

Riding along the Puget Sound in Washington, right outside of Seattle

Somewhere in North Dakota

Sketches

These are my initial ideas for the eyewear piece.  I didn't get a chance to show anybody, so here is my proof :)



My inspiration was from the eye of a chameleon.  I thought of creating a sort of hair stick that held a sphere on the end that you could peer into.  But, I thought that the chain may get tangled in hair too easy and that is something I don't want to mess with.  After that, I thought about making spectacles for the opera, but I was unsatisfied with how rigid it was looking.  So, I came up with a pendant/magnifying glass concept (not shown here).

Back on Track

The last few weeks have been very hectic, last week especially.  I haven't been able to put forward as much time in Jewelry as I would like to because we hosted this guy in Ceramics.

But all that is done for now and I can focus on making my eyewear piece.  I haven't been able to be in the studio too much, but that gave me more time to consider what to make and how to make it, so I think I'm in good shape.

Sketches and progress images to come soon.

Wowza.

This week flew by! C2D had a visiting artist in from California Monday and Tuesday and he is the man!!! While he was here I slacked off on everything that wasn't ceramics.  But, now that he's left, I'm more motivated than ever to get some work done.  

I hope all ya'll jump at the chance to see other artists lectures and demonstrations because it is pretty incredible to see someone else construct and problem solve right in front of you.

Now, back to melting chain links.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29825510@N08/

Chain Making

Do you understand how much this creeps me out?

So much.

Alligator feet are the inspiration for my chain project.

I am making a belt piece, where the claws wrap around the torso.  Eeeek!

There will be a hidden key clasp in the front where two claws will come together and the feet are going to be made out of woven wire.  Basket weaving isn't my best skill, but hey, who doesn't like a challenge sometimes?

New Semester, New Theme

Second day of Jewelry and I learned how to weave a chain today.  It seems a lot less complicated than when I researched how to do this in a book a few months ago. Phew!

Last semester, my theme was rodents.  It was really fun and I came up with so many good ideas, but I think I'm going to go out of my comfort zone this semester.  I'm moving away from mammals and moving into unchartered reptile territory.  This should be fun.  I've been researching images  of several different species of reptiles and the texture alone will bring great inspiration for pieces.  I learned how to do marriage of metals last semester and I would love to get better at it.  I think designs incorporating this technique will come easy.