Flower storm

I'm so happy that one of my pieces got into Holly Gage's calendar :). It's the second time my work is published in this wonderful publication. This year it's my "Flower storm" necklace. I made it of Goldie Bronze, sterling silver and SO beautiful, blue-green labradorite. It was so much fun making it. Actually I think this was my biggest metal clay piece ever. It barely fitted my firing pan ;). Surprisingly I had totally no problems with firing it, so it was another successful trial with Waldo Iłowiecki's bronze.

It began as a sketch. I just drew a rough idea of the design around the stone. I have quite big collection of labradorite cabochons, and that day this one seemed to be particularly inspiring. I saw a storm inside it :) and wanted to use it in a dynamic, intricate design. I wanted to make something really big and openwork.

I formed the base of  the necklace out of twig-like textured, thin coils. I like working on plexiglass, because I can put my sketches under it and they are still visible. This way I can easily use a sketch as a very accurate reference.

Then I added tiny balls and flowers...

 ...and decided that it would be nice to make two smaller elements, connecting the main part of the necklace with a chain I wanted to add later. I also added a plain "arch" to create nice contrast between rich organic ornaments and smooth, shiny surface.
Then I fired the piece ( I used the firing schedule I described in my post about Goldie Bronze™), made a soldered bezel cup for the stone and attached it to the main part. I added a few jump rings and a chain. The last thing to do was to slightly bend the necklace, to make it fit nicely a curvature of wearer's neckline. This bronze is really strong, so it wasn't a problem at all.



The same week I made also two other pieces similar in style. The first one was a "Flower storm" bangle, also with a labradorite cab. I wanted to check if it's possible to make strong and secure prong setting using Goldie Bronze. Totally positive. The second piece was a pair of earrings, adorned with flat, black pearls. It was quite tricky to make one earring look like a mirror image of another one, but I succeeded... more or less ;).


Well, enough about bronze for now. Recently I'm working with another wonderful material - green gold clay by Michelle Felice Glaeser! I also finally used my package of Art Clay 22K yellow gold clay ( I had it for 3 years ;D and it was still moist and pliable!). I'll write more about it soon :).