...a mostly successful photo of this piece! its still kinda dark... Jenn, i need your help with these things.
so this piece is dealing with those passages ideas i was talking about a few weeks ago. two entrances: one leading to darkness, one leading... up. this is an enamel pendant, so the color you see on this piece is layer after layer of sifted glass enamel (which is a powder of ground glass) so, white, with orange, then the black is painted enamel on top of that which is basically a mixture of the powdered glass and a solvent that i paint with. So, its all enamel. The enamel bakes onto copper in a kiln at 1475 degrees F, one layer at a time.
comments/critique welcome!

so, i made some awesome enamels. the sad news is, its too dark out to properly photograph them. i keep getting blurry too shiny images. i'll have to photo them tomorrow in the natural light.

stormtrooper + egon schele + aeon flux = tonights monstrosity. i make no claims on the side of the defense. i promise to post some jewelries tomorrow night!

more hearty hearts. oh noes!

some hearts... thinking of valentines...

i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack

a collection of sketches from the past week. i was reading Sandman, and gorgons were on the brain. perhaps some snake patterns are in my future. something awesomely powerful about women and snakes.

sorry for the lack of updates... just landed in Miami today, and i'll be here for about 5 days... and i forgot the plug for my camera to hook into my computer. rest assured, i'll have a collection of scans for when i return, but till then, it'll be all crickets on this end. see you next week!

some color

little color designs of some Sumerian based necklaces, with beading designs as well. i have some peridot and turquoise sitting around that would look beautiful with these color schemes. kinda summery looking, i think.

jewelries

so enough with crazy meandering ideas. here's some solid enamel pendant sketches, some i've sold before with a few tweaks, and others i still have brewing in my mind. beneath the sketches are some images of how the actual enamels will look, after being acid etched, painted with enamel watercolor, and fired in my kiln a few fifteen times. enamel pendants start out as copper metal shapes, which are then cleaned thoroughly, then dusted with enamel, which is ground up glass, for those of you who don't know.


so, this top piece in white is white enamel on copper with orange enamel details. the two beneath it are copper that's been etched to create patterns, then enameled with transparent enamel to create the shine. they're impossible to photograph, apologies for the horrible lighting. and, a raven.

sumerians invade my sketchbook

more sumerian images. i'm hooked. also, cuneiform is awesome. this is an evil sumerian ibix:


and these are some more patterns i found, from ancient games, and scribings on the side of inlaid boxes, and the equivalent of a sumerian astrology chart.

so, i've been brewing on this idea of passages, doorways, transitions. doing a few sketches based on some images about that. also... i created these enamels recently using a combination of orange enamel, fine silver foil, blue over that to catch the iridescence, and black enamel paint to get the details:


and my dad astutely noticed that they have a resemblance to ancient Sumerian motifs. i thought, awesome, i can rock hammurabi. (hah!) so, i looked at some Sumerian images, which you can see sketched below. Particularly thought the center image looked like a doorway:



And attempted to sketch some Gothic windows before the intricacy annoyed me. I always think its a good idea until i get to the buttresses:

still progressing with this idea. it all started when i was reading Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, in which there is a series of passages hidden in another realm mirrored to ours. mirrors act as doorways... reflections upon our own image... that kinda thing in relation to jewelry and wearable objects just grabbed me.

Pear tree

...a random sketch i drew the other day while hanging out in a hotel lobby by a gas fireplace. where do pear trees come from? large pears that live beneath them.

Tomorrow, most like, I will scan in some images I've been working on. Mostly, this blog will be to act as inspiration to create images that I'll paint with enamel on some of my jewelry pieces. More to come!