Monday, February 23, 2015

Earring Monday ~ Weeks 5, 6, 7, 8

Yep - I missed a deadline while in Tucson - so - here I am catching up with 4 weeks of earrings...



First up ~ I also participate in Andrew Thornton's Allegory Gallery Design Challenges. About a month ago, we had the Desert Sands Challenge .Here's my post for that. I finally put together a pair of earrings with some great teardrops from that kit.





I love to take classes and learn new techniques when I visit Tucson for the gem shows. This year was no different. I took a torch enameling class from Joni Kisro at her studio.

We learned how to use Kevin Potter's hydraulic press and pancaked dies to shape earring components before enameling. I am in love with big tools!!!
I love the idea of transforming metal and adding color.
We were able to press out shapes for 12 pairs of earrings. Each pair could have an enameled shape and a back plate.




After "flame painting" these, I decided the colors were too pretty to hide behind anything!











I absolutely love these elongated hearts! One of the dangers of torching outside is that nature sometimes does unexpected things.  Can you find the the fried fly wing?


I know there's definitely more enameling in my future!


This last pair I designed for a friend who asked for something simple to go with her royal blue Mother of the Bride gown. Understated and elegant...




Thanks so much, Sarajo Wentling for encouraging me to take on this challenge.
Please visit her blog for the other participants!

See you in two weeks with more earrings!





3 comments:

  1. OMG, Jeanne... way to catch up with a bang! I'm so in love with your flame painted pair and the torch enameled hearts. I would love to try that some day too. Looks like you had tons of fun in class. Thanks for sharing and for playing along with me. Can't wait to see what you make next!

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  2. What creative earrings. I'm in awe of the flame painting. Those are especially amazing. I love to see what you make each time!

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  3. Wow! Looks like you had a lot of fun with the torch. I really need to play with mine more and I so want to try out enamels.

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