Today I decided to change slightly the way I do my jewellery. I should in fact work on two (three) pieces I have started, to submit for two exhibitions. One is nearly finished, the other in the same series I had to start over with, and the last is well underway.
But sometimes we just get the urge to do something new, right? I especially do when something is not working out, I then move on to another thing, and after a bit I have renewed energy to face the problematic piece.
So what I have been doing today is...
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| No... not playing with a monocle. Well, sort of ;) |
I have been working on a "master" setting of sorts. I normally produce more enamels than I can ever set, for several reasons: because I prefer enamelling, because I am better at it, because I am lazy about making settings, because I am out of this or that kind of silver, etc.
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| Working with rich low brass |
So I have decided to make a few settings of the shapes I most commonly use, and then have a mold and casts made out of it (silver and possibly bronze as well). This does limit a bit the shape and size of the coppers I make, but after going through my sketch books, I did see certain shapes recurring often, with very slight differences in shape or size. I also thought, that when you buy a painting, you don't necessarily ask for a frame to be done from scratch to suit that particular painting! that can be done sometimes, but for more special pieces.
So, I narrowed down to a number of shapes, and I got started with my first setting. With cast settings, I hope to speed up my production!
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| Not a round one in fact! Round settings are easy enough to make that I don't think I will make a mold of one. Shaping both elements into a circle makes it easier to fit them to each other in order to solder them together. I will then split it again and work the shape I want. The little piece to the left, though, that was a trickier soldering operation: |
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| First soldering rings to the sheet, then: |
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| Soldering the entire thing to half round wire. |
At which point I took a break to eat something and write this down :) back to the workbench!
Edit:
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| Taking shape. This is all for today though. |
