New versions of older designs and fun of learning :-)

Recently I am playing a little bit more with wonderful possibilities of hand creating prototypes of jewellery in metal clay and then translating them into pieces made with lost wax technique. I am pretty happy with the results and I definitely think this is a fantastic way of using properties of metal clay. I already posted here a few of my flowery designs, but recently I also made a few symbols, which I always loved. All the pieces in this post are made of traditional sterling silver.




This is only the beginning of a whole collection of symbols, but I wanted to start with motif of trees, Sun ("Solar mandala") and tiny, crescent Moon. All these designs were totally hand formed and carved (no ready moulds etc.), then made into sterling silver, and adorned with natural stones. I really enjoy the whole process.

On example of my first metal clay designs meant for lost wax casting technique I learned really a lot about dos and don'ts of the whole process. Avoiding undercuts, paying attention to thickness of all elements, thinking about how wax will flow when filling the mould etc.
And, yeah - this was a hard lesson - I also learned that if I don't say a loud STOP to myself, I can work on a design FOREVER. It's never good enough. But the funny thing is that it seems these imperfections are what make my pieces natural, and interesting to the eye. At least this is what I keep hearing from my clients. My inner perfectionst is crying ;-).

I am also super happy that I designed my own bails - they work nicely and correspond really well with the designs they are meant for (at least I think so ;-) ). They will probably be suitable for some other pieces I want to make and some of my one of a kind work. So, definitely no more generic, ready bought bails in my jewellery and I have some more ideas for this type of articulated bails coming.

As for other interesting things - I finally visited Wytwórnia Antidotum - jewellery making school based in Warsaw, to "collect" my prize for a contest I won last year with my pendant "Natura abhorret a vacuo". The prize were private classes in the school and I used it all to learn a little bit more about traditional techniques of stone setting. We focused on faceted stones. Here you can see some of my trials with different types of settings (yeah... A drunken hedgehog would probably do it better then I did, and I definitely need to practice, practice and maybe practice a little bit more ;-) , but hey - learning on your own mistakes also works :-) ). I generally knew how all these settings work, but it's a completely different story, to actually try it yourself under a guidance of someone experienced (big thanks to Remigiusz Grodzicki :-) ). I also did a few tube settings, but they are not in the photo. I had a lot of fun, but my hands really hurt :-))). After all - I am a delicate metal clay girl ;->.

Just one more nice photo for the end of this post ;-). One of my sterling silver "Twig rings", which also started their life as metal clay pieces, photographed in a pretty surroundings :-).