Earrings in progress

I cut these recently.
As your keen observation skills have probably already detected, the one on the left has be filed and sanded, while the one on the right has not.
After they are both fully filed and sanded I will take them to the studio and anneal them so that they can be twisted into the shape I want. I will curl the tops of them, as is my habit, around a jump ring, hang them on some ear wire, and presto, I will have a beautiful pair of earrings!

Work in progress......

It doesn't look like much yet....but it will once it's been cut off and cleaned up!
I'm working on another one of these, I'm going to try it in gold.
The other thing in the back ground is a ring. I'm going to try to set a stone into it, but I haven't decided which stone to use.

Casting classes!

So I'm going to my casting class tonight. So far the things I've sculpted have turned out beautifully!!!!

The way it works is you make your piece out of wax, and then you make a plaster cast of it. The wax is burned out and the hole left in the plaster is then filled with molten metal. The metal is then cleaned and finished.

This process allows me to really use a lot of my artistic talents, and I love working with that wax. It's completely different from the fabrication classes. I'm really glad I took those classes first because if I hadn't, I might never even want to, as my talents are so well suited to wax modeling!

The pieces that were cast in the last class were poured by my instructor, so technically they are not my work alone. She said I could pour it myself but, as I've see it done more than once, but I wanted these two pieces to, um, actually turn out? She said that casting is never guaranteed, if I do it there's a 50% chance it will turn out, where as if she does it, there's an 80% chance it will turn out. There are just so many factors that go into it and so many things that could go wrong. I wanted them to have the best chance of success, as I really put a lot of work into the pendant. If I'm feeling very brave, I will pour the next batch. I have been commissioned to make a ring for someone, and if I manage to get a round to it in this class, I will have to pour that one myself......
Even if I'm not successful in the pouring it's all a learning process, and as my instructor says I can't let being afraid of ruining something prevent me from doing it, "After all Sarah, it's only wax!"
I will take my camera with me tonight so I can photograph the unfinished pieces!
And oh, Happy Birthday to me!! I didn't receive any cards this year but that's probably due to the postal strike ;)