24K Gold Wire

Man, if I could afford it, I would do all my wires in 24K gold.  It's like working with pure magic.  Seriously, this is $300 worth of gold in my hand.... 

 So I warmed up with a pair of earrings.  These will be ruby red...

Then moved on to a large Griffon Necklace. 

Then, as my gold finale, I made this.  It's going be a present for my friend Jovan and will ultimately be a kilt pin.  He's got the McEwen tartan, but I'm honoring his Serbian heritage here with the crest.  The little fleur-de-lis will be matching cufflinks.  It's going to be a surprise, so don't tell him!

I've got some silver wire to bend tom morrow,  but hopefully I'll be able to start enameling these this weekend. 

Bending wires this week!

I like to warm up with the easy ones:





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Getting organized!

Color samples:

Here are the rejects...




More winners than losers though...

Hi everyone!  

I've got a tutorial in this month's issue of Art Jewelry Magazine!

If you are looking to purchase the "Blue Fuse" fusing liquid I described in the tutorial, here's the link:

Ornamentea.com

Happy Enameling!

New studio space!

I've recently moved into my new studio at Artspace, located in downtown Raleigh. The space is enormous! I've got plenty of room and the light is perfect. My studio is open to the public from Wednesday through Saturday, so stop by and visit!

Artspace
201 E Davie Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Studio 105

sandramcewen shared an Instagram photo with you

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"L33 is looking like a "no"... NG314 is buttery and nice!"

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

sandramcewen shared an Instagram photo with you

Hi there,

sandramcewen just shared an Instagram photo with you:

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Thanks,
The Instagram Team

sandramcewen shared an Instagram photo with you

Hi there,

sandramcewen just shared an Instagram photo with you:

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"I've had these colors for ages. Time to make some sample strips and see what colors they really are!"

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

New work...

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The Dragon is finished!

Just in time for the American Craft Show in Baltimore!

Here's the Roman Wreath necklace.  It's very flattering to wear as well...

Color!

Red enamel can be tricky.  I probably have 20 different shades of red, but I only trust 3 of them not to be a disaster.  I'm taking a bit of a risk with this new shade, but it's so ruby red and delicious I thought it was worth the extra trouble.  I'm still a little nervous about it so I'm going to get the color down as fast as possible and get some clear on there to try to minimize the danger of the red reacting to the silver or getting splotchy.

The first layer went down fine, so I'm feeling a bit better.  I'm mixing the deep ruby red with some lighter shades of red, plus some yellow oranges for the belly and wings.

I'm also making another large necklace that was inspired from an Etruscan painted portrait I saw a while back.  It's simple, but I like the shapes, and the colors will be a nice gradient of green.  It's a refreshing offset to all that irksome red!  Anyway, here it is:

Dragon Part II

This is a large piece, so I added the wires in two stages, starting with the face and main divider lines. All those tiny scales are going to want to drift all over the place, so it's better to have everything else already fired in place first.

When I bent my wires, I used extra care to make sure the scales would fit as perfectly as possible.  With so many tiny little pieces of wire, one too-large piece could throw the whole design out of whack.  Even so, I spent time trimming things as I was laying in the wires.  

It looks like a lot of gold now, but ultimately, it's going to be a red dragon.  I used a foundation of 24K gold leaf so the reds will be as brilliant as possible.  

Happy Year of the Dragon!

One of the most common questions I get asked at shows is "How long did it take to make that?"  Well, it's complicated, because I tend to work on at least a dozen pieces all at once, usually one or two showcase pieces, plus some earrings and cuff links to fill it all in.  

But to give you a sense of the time it takes, I spent 5 hours bending the wires for the single dragon necklace shown in the above image.  I'm pretty psyched about it- I used 24K gold wires, and it's going to be a brilliant red dragon.  If all goes well, it should be complete by the time I go to the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore in February.  I will keep you posted!

Also, here are some highlights from last years work that I totally meant to put on my blog, but never really got around to it.  It's way more fun to make art than to blab about it online, but I've resolved to be better about it in 2012.  Seriously.  :P