Ready Set Saw!

I textured my metal by putting it through the rolling mill with 60 grit sand paper. I then attached three of them with rubber cement and set out for hours of sawing fun! When I finished, I realized my metal was much thinner than it appeared to me in the beginning. The pieces are super delicate and I'm not sure they can withstand being a bracelet. I think they're super awesome though and i'm thinking of ways to add sturdiness or to repurpose them. Here they are:

Tube Stone Setting

I'm trying to figure out how I want to incorporate the tube set stone in my design. When I drew it originally, I have the stone floating so I have to figure out how I want to attach it. Here are some of my ideas:

Change in Plans

So since I still do not have my stones for the wax pendant, I have switched production project ideas. I will definitely continue to work on the pendant. My new project is going to be a series of five cuff bracelets that have tube set stones in them. Here are some of my ideas, i've been playing with scale and the amount of repetition.

Carved Wax

Here is the wax carving in progress. 

Its not complete because I haven't received my stones in the mail yet. Cant wait to get them! The shape is hard to see in the photo but there is a lot of variation in line thickness. It is meant to mimic how a thick liquid would bunch up in a tube like structure. I still want to push the movement in the piece. Its not quite where I want it yet.

Production function

Art Jewelry Magazine had an article this month focusing on production strategies and methods. How appropriate! The article is titled, Making multiples by Michael David Sturlin.  I thought an interesting point that they mentioned was to be careful not too overproduce. The article stated, "you want to make enough so that your productive but not so many that it becomes tedious." Once you lose your enthusiasm, you lose some of the beauty your work can posses. "If your bored, the quality of your work will slip." Motivation is key!

The production processes that the article talked about were making a template, blanking dies, Hydraulic press and conforming dies. And of course Casting.

Stone Setting in wax

Production Piece ideas

I want to carve something in wax, cast it, then rubber mold it to make multiples. Here are some sketches, I was inspired by the overall shape of moose antlers and how they resemble the movement of water. I want to merge the two for the design below, which will possibly have a stone set in it.