wood thrush studio blog

another roller textured piece

2011-06-26T17:01:00.001-04:00

Oh, I forgot - yes, I have gotten another piece finished lately - read more about it here at my etsy shop.

roller texture earrings and learning repousse

2011-06-26T16:49:00.000-04:00

It's been slow going lately without getting much done here but I did get a chance to finish a couple pair of roller textured copper earrings last week. Karen wanted a pair of copper earrings with springy wire decos and beads so I made 2 extra pairs with different shapes of leaves and different beads so she could have a choice for her favorites. Here are the 2 pair that she didn't choose:

What I have been doing is learning repousse. Nothing to show that I would want to put in a finished piece yet - just doing lots of practicing. Here is a trial piece from the front:

From the back:

Repousse is a French word meaning "to push". In metal working it is taking a flat sheet of metal and hammering it from the back with punches to make volume, refining it from the front also and then usually finishing the front with texture of some sort or planishing it smooth. Here is the set-up that I am using - the bowl of pitch that holds the metal while it's being worked on (pitch offers just the right amount of resistance to the hammer blows - allows the metal to move where it is being struck but keeps the area around that still), a cup of repousse tools in the upper left corner and the chasing hammer on the right. You need a lightweight hammer to strike the tools as the metal can only be moved very slowly. To get much height or detail you need to frequently anneal your metal and rework it over and over again:

Close-up of the tools in hand and a very excellent book on the subject in the background:

I love these tools - they are works of art in themselves! From www.mettleworks.com.

rolling mill

2011-04-22T16:02:00.001-04:00

I'm very excited that I recently got my own rolling mill. I have seen others work using a rolling mill and loved the organic effects. Dry leaves, thread, dry flowers, cut paper or handmade paper, thin wire, fabric are just a few of the things that can be used to texture silver, copper and brass. I was kind of afraid to use it on silver since the price of silver is so high right now - the new mill sat there unused for about a week - till I remembered - oh, Copper! Brass! Today was the first day to really try it out and this was my first texture on copper - a skeletal leave:

I've already worked up a jewelry design to use this that I think will be pretty cool. I hope to show the finished pendant next week!

6mm Square Stones

2011-01-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

Below are the 6mm square stones that I have available to use in jewelry designs:

STONES - Oval 8mm by 10mm and 5mm Round - Faceted and Cabochon

2011-01-18T16:26:00.004-05:00

Shown below are examples of many of the standard stones that I have available to use in my designs:

phoenix finished!

2010-11-19T14:51:00.001-05:00

I finished both the phoenix pendant and a pair of earrings for a friend yesterday. Feels good to keep moving forward. Since I have been caring for my mom full time the last 3 years it seems like I get slower and slower in my jewelry work each year.

"Dare to Rise Up from the Ash" - sterling, copper, brass, simulated sapphire, enamel on fine silver, garnet and amber, and "Angel" earrings - sterling and garnet.

phoenix progress #2

2010-11-15T16:52:00.001-05:00

I finished the four enamel shield shapes for the phoenix last week and Chelsea choose #3:

I'll probably use the others someday in other pendants. I have made enough progress on the phoenix that I'm soldering down the bezels, the silver balls and the cut out copper wings today. The little sticks of solder laying on the neck will melt and then I can attach balls there too:

I love looking at the roughness of everything at his stage, on the burnt surface of the soldering block. When it is finished it will be so totally different.

cutting, stamping, doming

2010-10-21T17:50:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I wrote that I would get started on enameling the phoenix over the weekend - here it is Thursday and I'm just now at the point where I can start to enamel (things seem to take longer and longer all the time!). Today I finished cutting out, stamping and doming the copper and silver shapes that I will soon (I always say that) be able to start enameling.

The shield shapes are going to be potential phoenix bodies and the oval shapes with BE HERE NOW stamped on them are going to be potential rings. The circle on the far left is going to be a pendant for my sister. Generally I like to make multiples of enamels for a major piece so the customer can have a choice which would be their favorite.

phoenix progress

2010-10-15T16:48:00.001-04:00

Today we have decided on the final shape of the phoenix pendant and where the bails will go on the back. I'll get started this weekend enameling the "body".

I really do love the day and age we are living in now. With digital cameras and email it only takes a minute or two to get a photo of a sketch ready to send for approval. The customer can stay home and so can I. Seems too good!

a look at the design process

2010-10-14T19:19:00.002-04:00

Here is a photo of an artwork that Chelsea wanted me to use as a design jumping off point for a phoenix pendant - her hope was that it would have purple/blue colors and red/pink colors like the painting along with warm brown/orange colors so she can wear it with both warm and cool colors:

First step - start making sketches - even if I don't really like the first ones they are part of the process to find out what works:

Pick out and play around with colors:

Then put them together to show the client to see what she thinks:

Chelsea got back to me and did like the design but would like me to adjust the top of the wings. I'll try to keep this journal updated with it's progress!

completed and ready to go!

2010-09-24T15:24:00.001-04:00

Friday - "Precious Gift" with garnets, "Perfect" with simulated opals, "Sun Circle" with amber, "Peace" with simulated blue zircon, and "Inner Vision 8" with ceramic faces and glass beads. It took me a little longer than Wednesday to get finished but they are ready to go now!

earrings assembly

2010-09-20T13:13:00.002-04:00

Right now I'm working on 5 pairs of earrings - in a batch. It's easier to get all the bezels made at the same time, all the silver cut out and filed at the same time and do each stage's work as if I'm my own little assembly line. Where I'm at today:

Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I will have everything soldered together and perhaps even the stones set and everything polished...

finished

2010-09-11T17:47:00.001-04:00

I've been a little lax with posting progress here so I thought I'd do an update on how that little black onyx ring turned out with the special stone I made to fit it. I ended up putting a small sterling back-plate inside the bezel to stabilize the stone and make everything more secure. I was very pleased with how it all turned out and my customer was too!

a little about polishing stones

2010-05-24T09:49:00.002-04:00

Just for interest - photos of a project I'm doing - creating a stone to fit in this ring setting. The original stone broke and was lost and the customer asked me to create a new stone and reset it. Shown with it's future setting and with the size of stone I started with. An 8 by 10mm oval seemed like a good starting point to grind down to the 4 by 8.5mm oblong size I need for the setting:

The little black onyx stone on it's dop stick - I spent yesterday grinding it to this shape with 120 diamond grit. The dop stick is basically just a wooden dowel with dopping wax melted on the end. The dopping wax is very sticky when hot and pliable so it can be attached to the stone but at room temperature it gets hard and can hold the stone while you work on it. When I'm all done I will put it in the freezer and the stone should pop off easily:

This is the spool polisher I will use today to get a nice polish on the little stone. Those syringes in back hold grades of diamond cream which correspond to the different areas on the spool that I will apply the cream to. I will work the stone from 350 grit up through 50,000 grit to a high shine:

I will need to do some adjustments to the silver ring setting too. I think the original stone broke and fell out because it needed a more stable base for the stone so I will be adding a sterling plate to make a solid bottom for the setting.

glazing fun

2010-03-22T10:14:00.003-04:00

I've been having lots of fun lately glazing my little faces in as many colors and textures as possible. I feel like I FINALLY have enough!

So now I am busy making earrings from my little friends. Click on a photo of earrings below to go to my etsy shop and read more about them.

ceramic faces

2010-03-01T08:25:00.000-05:00

Last month I got a new kiln - the Paragon Quickfire 6 and ever since I have been working at creating more ceramic faces to use in jewelry making.

It's just a small kiln - 6" by 6" interior but that is perfect for my jewelry making - easy to fill for a firing so I can fire more often and it is FAST - 1 hour and 40 minutes for a bisque fire and less than 30 minutes for a glaze fire. I'm excited about making many, many, MANY pairs of faces of all colors and glaze textures to use in earrings. What I think is so neat is that even though I am trying to make the faces come out of my push mold as uniform as possible still they each end up being individuals - one is more oriental, one more negroid, one more caucasian, one happy, one sad, one more introspective, one very serious, one old, one a child, one might even be a man, another definitely a beautiful woman. It is so much fun to play with the different glazes - some aren't turning out how I imagined from the photos in the catalogs but I am getting many happy accidents.

preparing to enamel

2010-01-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

I spent the morning cleaning up my enameling table in my studio. It has been months since I enameled anything and the table had become the catchall for the room. Too bad I didn't take a "before" photo - the change would really have been impressive .

The cake pans contain the plastic spoons that I use to hold my enamel powders for washing with distilled water and then mixing with a little enameling adhesive. They need to be protected from dust when I'm not using them and I found disposable aluminum cake pans with plastic lids are perfect for the job.

Here's a close up of the samples that I made for my enamel colors. They all are fired onto a copper base with the enamel color then applied either directly over the copper, over copper with a clear flux base, over white, directly over silver foil, over silver foil with clear flux base or over gold foil. The colors sometimes react to the metals in odd ways so it is good to make samples first to see what they will look like.

Soon I hope to post about how I torch fire the enamels...

working methods

2010-01-14T13:36:00.001-05:00

Right now I'm trying to finish up some of the things I have had on the back burner for years. I start things - design things, maybe cut out some of the parts and make the bezels for the stones but then quit - I get a commission or just lose interest and never get back to them. The parts end up in ice cube trays so I can keep things separate and (hopefully) work on them later. They just keep building up and building up! So today I'm going to get into them and see what appeals to me to finish. Plus I have a commission to make a pendant for my friend Paula and I like to work on a couple things at a time - so I don't have to get my hands dirty polishing on just one thing...

completed

2010-01-11T18:44:00.001-05:00

I worked most of the day on setting the stones in these, doing a final polish (and photographing them). Isn't that almandine garnet (the red stone) beautiful? I love that deep red!

pre-polish

2010-01-10T22:07:00.000-05:00

I finished constructing 11 band style rings and 3 pairs of earrings today that I have been working on the last few days, oxidized them and then did the pre-polish. I love the look of the jewelry at this stage nearly as much as when I'm totally finished. I like this dark, non-shiny look. I think I see it as sculpture more than as jewelry at this point, before the stones are set. At the top you can see my flex shaft machine with a small cotton buff coated with the tripoli pre-polish. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it!

3 earrings and 2 rings started

2010-01-08T08:11:00.001-05:00

I have 5 things lined up that I'm making right now. 3 earrings and 2 rings. I'm about 1/4 the way done at this point. I have the bezels that go around the stones made and I have the base pieces cut out and filed. Now it is time to sand everything.

blue skimmer

2010-01-01T14:10:00.001-05:00

Remember those dragonfly earrings with the bluish patina I last showed on Dec 28th? Well, after polishing them most of the patina is gone now - just a little left around the bezels and bails - not enough to really show as blue anymore. In the future I plan to do some designs where there are more crevasses to save the beautiful blue colors in. I'm calling this my "skimmer" earring design and hope to do more with other stones and other colors. This pair of earrings is called "Blue Skimmer". Because the tail is all beads and the wings are light gauge sheet (24 gauge) they are nice and light in weight. I have them listed in my marybird etsyshop now.

creation day

2009-12-31T18:48:00.003-05:00

Creation, designing and working with one's hands are good ways to deal with sad emotions. I recently lost my little studio buddy - my Anniecat - who shared my studio space with me. She frequently slept on my work table, the shelf above it or at my feet, and was just generally "always there". I did stay in bed for a while this morning feeling numb and thinking about my loss but then decided to come out and try to work on something. I was looking in a catalog and saw a ready made adjustable band which spiraled up around your finger that you could purchase and then glue a cabochon onto. I thought this was a good idea - but I could do much better - make a bezel cup for my cabochon with all soldered connections and make it really secure. Above you can see the result. I used one of my own enameled cabs with Japanese enamels over a copper base with copper cloisonne wires. I named the ring "Creation Day" - it reminded me of a sperm visiting an egg. Thank goodness there is work to turn to in difficult times.

finished

2009-12-30T13:18:00.004-05:00

I finished those dark oxidized rings I showed last time. The stones are set and everything is polished now. The two wedding style rings are for my friends, Gayle and Karen (copper appliques and amethyst for Karen and brass appliques and citrine for Gayle - I hope they like them!), and the adjustable ring with black mother of pearl and black onyx on the left is for an etsy customer.

patina - the dark before the dawn

2009-12-28T11:12:00.006-05:00

I like to put a patina on all my jewelry - I like how it accents the details. The above photo shows a "liver of sulfur" patina. The sulfur comes in chunks that will melt in hot water - then you dip your metal piece into the sulfur bath to get your color. The patina deepens with additional dipping. On the dragonfly earrings I added some ammonia to the liver of sulfur to get more blue colors in the patina - something I just recently discovered. At this stage in fabrication the jewelry is looking it's worst - it is the dark before the dawn.

fabrication - nearly finished

2009-12-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

What to write about here? How about the process of silver jewelry fabrication? Making things from scratch with wire and sheet metal. I'm nearly done with the above pieces of jewelry - all they need now is to be dipped into an oxidation bath (which patinas everything), then prepolished with tripoli (to remove the oxidation from the higher areas), stones set into their bezels and then given a final high shine polish and a wax treatment to deter future oxidation. I'll keep you posted on what some of these steps look like in future entries.

it's about time

2009-12-27T19:30:00.000-05:00

Above: a photo of Wood Thrush Studio.

It's about time that Wood Thrush Studio had an "official" blog. I've done online journaling for my own pleasure for about 9 years now but it wasn't what I would want to represent my business and the art and jewelry I make for Wood Thrush Studio. So here we go ... starting my official wood thrush studio blog!