phoenix finished!

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

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

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.

preparing to enamel

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...