Stones and Sketches

I hit up the Rochester Gem Show last week and got some nice stones from it. Though it seemed like this year the dealers had more specimen samples than cut stones I still feel like I found a ton of good examples, and I made smarter decisions about which ones to buy. I have plans for most of them at least; like the denim lapis on the tape strip and similar sized stones will be put into some more copies of the Jupiter Pendant, the snowflake obsidian piece will go into earrings, the sugilite I want to make into a pin, the unakite into a pendant, the list goes on.

I haven't been in the studio as much as I want to be, therefore I only have sketches of future plans for the production projects and a couple of designs for CAD.

I have been slowly working on the large rainmaker necklace (as I have dubbed it) at the top of this page and you can see some of the plans for my new stones and senior show here.

Laser cutting! All my laser cutting ideas for my Digital Methods class and another varation on my tube setting earrings for production. I am a bit excited to laser cut some earrings for sale and just ordered some sterling tubing for more production. If anyone wants to save the date for the student sale this year it will be December 5th and 6th opening at 10 AM or so each day.

I also want to have these drawings laser cut as a pair of earrings, perhaps they would do well in the sale?

Still haven't forgotten the earring jacket idea either even though I need to work on it some.

Also begining to run out of concluding noises and sounds to end my posts with this semester, but continuing with my subtheme of creepy radio transmissions from last week have the Russian Woodpecker.

This one is radio interference caused by the Duga-3 over the horizon radar system in Chernobyl meant to give early warning of missles coming from America to Russia. It was operational between 1976 and 1989 and interfered with shortwave radio to the point that devices and radios began to be made to eliminate the annoying noise caused by the system. Welp hopefully next week will have cheerier material and some jewelry being worked on to show the world.

Damage Control

By my count its week nine of a ten or eleven week summer session so let's see what I've got going. First it's the ring for my rubber molds, I finally got them all made yesterday and had a chance to to test them out with mixed results.

Mixed results in this case means a lot of incomplete waxes that are difficult to pry out of the molds in one piece. Oh well, as long as I can get one good casting of each...

For my production stuff it's going fairly rocky at best. I have this thing in wax that I don't know what to do with (it's also huge at two by three inches).

In terms of a full "line" of jewelry all I've got are these earrings with CZs in each end of the tubing,

A mock up of the pin with a quasi standard pin back since my clever and different pinning method didn't work,

A necklace that doesn't lay well and has subsquently been modified to limited effect,

And, finally this strange ring being shown upside down. It's a set I'm not especially thrilled with, but there's hope yet!

In the form of these earrings, that is. I ran out of stones to set in the end of the tubes, but I did order more material to make them, and a couple other items to go along with them.

For example there's these two ring ideas and a chain necklace as featured in this hot sketchbook on sketchbook on scanner action. While I wait for the supplies to make these items, there isn't much to do except make samples of them out of copper and brass. There's also the theme and name of the line to decide on which will be some futuristic space stuff since the earrings look like cheap sci-fi show set design, perhaps an engine room of some sort? What ever brings me an excuse to go through one of my favorite sites again before packages from jewelry suppliers start trickling in tommorow. Hooray for Summer ordering!

Earrings, Ear...rains?

It turns out that I may like shiny and round laserdiscs too much to cut them up, just look at it up on my bulletin board there. Real life did get in the way of making earring prototypes which is why I could only make four and two half pairs. That will make more sense as we dive into the pictures of what I did make and did not have time to make!

Yep those clicky clacky record and metal earrings from last week are back along with

earrings that I rather like and have been told look like gladiator style or "something from Portal,"

this pair of sterling and vinyl ones that are kinda Sonic the Hedgehog looking,

another random acrylic and brass pair plus,

two single earring jackets made from Pente pieces, hence the "two half pairs" bit.

Onward to things that could have been, starting with this revamp of last week's leaf earring jacket into a full earring.

A combination tuxedo/five inch floppy disk earring! Actually this one was supposed to have the black acrylic bit swivel out from the silver triangle part, but alas time ate that one, too.

For giggles the original design of the blue pente piece earring jackets,

some sort of random seesaw earrings,

still messing around with an old oscilloscope based design,

treble clef earring with chimes hanging from them,

and, finally, the corresponding bass clef pair. This is the point where I ran out of ideas in the sketchbook, you see. From here I get to go on to make five pin prototypes/samples, which real life threatens to loom over as well. As a teaser, here are the two simplistic pins I was able to make beforehand: a 3D/not 3D cube pin, and a blobby X thing. Consider them a preview for next week.



Sketch Drop, or What I Should be Doing in the Studio

And now a sketch dump, this is my tentative plan for fibers, where I have to dye a piece of cloth themed around  a season. I picked winter for no special reason and am planning to have black shibori vines/branches with a turquoise blue sky. The problem is that discharging dyes never returns the fabric back to white, and the professor likes fabric to have a massive amount of over laid pattern and dying, to the point of obliterating nice patterns you obtained on the first go. So I guess i'll just have to see how it develops on it's own...

But, while I was finishing working on this thing in my 2D Design class:

(can you spot all the craftsmanship errors I will be docked for? I can!)

An idea finally occured to me for jewlery design and here it is!

I've always wanted to do a swivel  locket since I saw one featured in a Lapidary Journal magazine, plus I did encounter an acorn on my earlier attempt to get inspired by walking through the park. The narrative portion of the project comes in with having a little tree inside the acorn when you open it up. that will be formed by  a copper wire, most likely with prongs to hold a wad of green fabric for leaves or perhaps threads.

The bail will be an oak leaf which I will probably have to shut up and patina it green, as much as I hate patinas. Thus I've already gone out and gotten spray lacquer for the occasion, to try and keep the patina from rubbing off too quickly. Currently this is my best plan to have a piece of jewelry that represents a walk in the woods, use of chasing and repousse, and a narrative all at once.

At least I'm closer to having a plan now and can finally begin work, woo.

Reject Parade: Kinetic

So to begin the great vision quest of junior jewelry here are the ten sketches for kinetic adornment, and why they were or weren't used for the project.

Number 1

This was meant to be an exploding asteroid pin made of reticulated brass blobs with smaller ones suspended on springs. Thus, making it a trembler pin that wiggles with the movement of the wearer. The problem is that most trembler pins hide the springs, and this one doesn't, which detracts from it.

Number 2

It's a poseable robot pin, nothing to see here move along please.

Number 3

A rocket slide necklace where the rocket can move around the wire as opposed to just hanging off of it. And a possible trail of sliding gems behind it too. Its not the worse of the designs but it is fairly typical and expected as pointed out in class.

Number 4

Here's one that could be interesting if developed further. This "rocket ring" features movable riveted nickel-silver fins and brass exhaust. The design is based off of the robot parrot from the Doctor Who episode "The Pirate Planet" which is a great story combined with a greater visual look then most episodes from the 1970s.

Number 5

It's a model of a solar system awkwardly grafted to a cuff bracelet. Includes hot orrery action with planets sliding on swiveling wire orbits around a crystal sun.

Number 6

And here is the same concentric solar system idea half baked from the side as a pendant. The planets instead somehow become spacers between the orbital rings. 

Number 7

Oscilloscopes pop  up in science fiction frequently enough, and this bracelet strings together a representation of that distinct round display and wavy line. The movement is limited to the wave form spinning about the central axis that pierces it and the overall design is simple and straightforward. I rarely make bracelets so this seems like a fun piece to do at least in my spare time.

Number 8

Another possibility was to mount the reticulated brass asteroid nuggets into hexagons and string the hexagons up into a standard necklace. I still haven't decided if it looks science fiction-ey enough, but hexagons are clearly the shape of the future!

Number 9

Here's a copper bangle bracelet with little silver ships sliding around it. Not much to say, other than the ships would catch on absolutely everything if you wore it.



Number 10

Dun, dun, DUN! the final sketch and the design that has been chosen for the project. This asteroid field necklace combines the reticulated brass nuggets with the sliding (or spinning) movement on wire idea from numbers 2, 5, 7, and 8. A proper drawing incorporating more elements from number 2 will be posted by the end of the week, since I have all day to work on it now that the college has closed for the eighth time in its history (according to facebook hearsay) due to the weather! Until then it's off to happy drawing land!