Blackfish

Here is a carving of an orca that I did while I was playing hooky from doing inventory. I plan on casting him (her?) in silver then putting a black patina on the body and rubbing back the white patches typical of an orca. 

Running rabbit

Here is a necklace I made from my impromptu running rabbit. I used Redicit to make the smaller ones which are 1/3 smaller than the original. I also made one more iteration which is 1/3 smaller than shown here, this size could be used for earings or charms. The blue stones are appetite and the brown ones are Poppy Jasper. It retails for $350.

Rough cast

This is the rough casting of a bunny I did as a quick demonstration for my lost wax casting class. I used sticky wax and it was so sticky I could not be my usual obsessive perfectionist, which is a good thing, as it freed me up to be spontaneous. I think it turned out pretty cute. It is cast in bronze.

Ginkgo choker and earring

I cast the components to this many, many...many years ago. As is so often the case, necessity forced me to finish it when I needed a piece to wear to a semi formal wedding. Sadly, after the event, I lost one of the earrings somewhere between here and Seattle.

I made the leaves out of modeler's wax, each one is individually carved. I folded back the stem of each leaf to form bails. After casting the leaves in sterling, I attached jump rings to the bails to link the leaves together.

I used 22 gage wire on the earrings for the ear wire (special thanks to my advanced students for their help in the design of the ear wire.

I then raised the fine silver (depletion gilded) and used a plannishing brush to create a satin finish.

Nice Surprise!

I had a nice surprise in the mail yesterday.  Even though it is called the January issue and is not due on newsstands until December 6; I received two copies of Art Jewelry magazine with my article in it.  The article looks beautiful and was not too chopped up by the editor.
There is one picture that I would have liked to replace but they did not have time to make the change.  Photo 3 does not show the dividers positioned correctly it should look like this:

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience working with the magazine and I will most likely do it again.  In the mean time, I am working on a video about carving a wax model.

Accepted!

I am very excited; I got an email, from the publisher that I submitted the magazine article to, saying that they want to publish my article. I have been published before, but that was for my woodcarving and they where short articles that they wrote. This is a full fledged article for advanced techniques; wax carving and finishing of cast rings. My original proposal was for casting also, but they did not accept that part and instead will run an article on sending work out to be cast.