Saturday, May 25, 2013

A Grander Plan: Designing a Series

I've been working on honing not just my technical skills, but my design skill as well. And this month, I took on a design series. Instead of designing one or two pieces that complemented each other, I designed...twenty-four.

That is a LOT OF METALWORKING! I am tired. My body aches. B-u-t I have twenty-four stone-set pieces that complement one another. 

I did make it a little easy on myself because I had bought a good quality of  Red Creek Jasper stones this winter, and they usually can be a little mix-and-match-y to begin with. And I was playing around with a new design feature, which transferred well among the stones. I'd started sampling it with single-color stones, and I liked it...but it's subtle, and I felt like it needed some more vibrant stones to accentuate.

So I sorted my stones into groups with similar patterns:

 
I made the bezels, textured the backs (the back of each piece in each grouping has the same texture), and then the fun started. I played around with wire, tiny silver discs, even tinier silver balls, and jump ring placement (for attaching ear wires and neck chains), until I had the designs worked out. Then I moved on to the next series:

And repeated the process. Different back texture, but assorted dots and lines and discs on the top and sides.

And once more:


Voila! Several groupings of mix and match designs. Any pendant could go with any earrings in the series.

I really enjoyed working on these, and I also managed (a twofer!) to refine my skill in joining pieces of metal together like this. I've been able to solder a join on a single piece of metal easily, and I can sweat solder pretty well, but I've struggled with this kind of work for a while. And since nearly every piece (the curved wire, the discs, the balls, and the jump rings) all have to be "side-soldered", for lack of a better term, I think I've improved my abilities just a wee bit. Which was actually part of the plan to begin with.  :)

Now that these are finished, priced, and listed on line, next week I'm going to be working on some more "Capital A" Artisan pieces. Can't wait!

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Beautiful work, Jill. Love the colors of the stones and the design of the setting. Are you coming back to the Sedona art show this year? This is where I live... maybe this explains why I am partial to the earthy colors ;)
    Patricia

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Patricia, and thank you!

      I'm afraid I won't be returning to the Sedona art show. I wish I could, because I loved being there (Sedona is so gorgeous!) but it's a lot of expense to travel for it and it just didn't have enough foot traffic for me to justify coming all the way from Georgia. :(

      I do hope to be back in Phoenix for the Tempe Arts Festival in December...but that's probably as close to Sedona as I'll get this year.

      If you're a regular blog reader, you'll know I grew up in Arizona. I'm so jealous of you having all that beauty around you always. It's lovely country!

      Delete