Jewelry Portfolio
Metalwork is tough, who knew? Jewelry making was one of those classes I took because, when else was I gonna get the chance to do that? But I've managed to apply some of the skills I gained to some cheaper to make and less taxing to make jewelry as well.
The unfortunate thing about the jewelry is that I am a 2D artist but my jewelry seems to get the most attention. This is annoying to say the least.
Cat Ring
This piece was made by carving the ring design into a block of wax, then making a mold of it and casting melted metal. That's a scary process, both in terms of not wanting to mess up badly enough to have to restart, and in fire awareness terms. I think the ring was worth it, though.
Making that wax carving was a very frustrating task, though. You have to get the measurements of the finger, carve out the center of the wax to fit around it, make sure it's even on both sides, then carve the ring design without messing up the center, mess it up anyway, fix it, hollow it out so it does not weight too much(both for ease of wearing and ease on your wallet), attach tubes to it for metal to flow in, mess up connecting the tubes and have to resculpt some of the ring, realize there is no good way for the ring to be positioned so gravity allows the whole thing to be filled with metal when it is cast
***Deep breath***
And once it is finally cast then you have to cut off the excess metal and end up having to file it and sand it and polish it even though you already did that in the wax stage so you have to do it again because it got messed up so many times and it takes so long and you have to redo it if you accidentally scratch it and
*****Deeper breath*****
So the cat ring's really cute I think, it has two little kittens and some blood sweat and tears, 10/10 would not go through that process again. Except I probably would but I'd be unhappy with myself if I did.
Ear Cuff
This piece was made in my own time, where I put some of my wire-working skills to use. It's not perfect, but most of the issues are hidden behind the ear when you wear it so it is fine by me. I'm really glad I made this because I don't have pierced ears, and clip on earrings are uncomfortable, so this gives me some kind of jewelry I can wear on my ears. It also just feels more my style than normal earrings anyway. I also made it so that you can switch out the decorative parts so that I can mix and match, and so I don't have to remake the base several times over every time I want to make a new set of decorations.
“That is a tasty purple.”
- My girlfriend