Silver ring

Today I have made a silver ring from a bit of wire that was already shaped into a spiral and a few bits of wire with balled up ends, joined onto another piece of round wire to make the ring shank.  I am really enjoying this ring making challenge but at some point will have to start making some to sell!

I have started another with a deep cell for resin but have put it to one side to send off for hallmarking.  Today's ring can go off for hallmarking too, I usually have work hallmarked before I finish it and almost always before I enamel it - although it is possible to have vulnerable pieces laser marked.

More rings

Three rings in three consecutive days.  I began with the opals that have been lying in a box in my workbench for a few years.  I bought the opal in matrix at a trade fair about 5 years ago and decided to pair it with a small opal triplet which was in the same box.  Then I realised I had become interested in the bezel settings again.  I used to make bezel settings all the time but haven't done this for a while either.  The teardrop textured piece of the second ring is made in art clay silver and was in a box of bits on my bench.  I made it when I was showing a student how to make a mould.  It was from a plastic button.  The round bezel is then filled with resin and gold leaf.  The third ring I have used another bit of art clay silver that was lying in my bits box and made this double bezel.  In the shallow one I have used tinted resin and in the larger deeper bezel I have used clear resin and tiny chopped up bits of red thread.  I am really enjoying making bezels so will have to do some more soon.

Ugthorpe hoard

Today I have been to a brilliant talk at the museum by Roger Dalladay.  He talked about the Ugthorpe hoard; a collection of coins found some time ago and eventually acquired by the museum.  He began by explaining a bit about the Roman monetary system.  He then showed pictures of the coins together with pictures of statue heads of the Emperors and explained the imagery in a really clear and entertaining way, putting all the Roman Emperors into context.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable talk and I will have to have a closer look at some of those coins now!

That big faux bone ring

Here is another view of one of the rings I posted yesterday.  I don't really like the finished thing but it has been  an interesting exercise in working out how to construct and assemble it.  First I roughly cut the circle in the faux bone.  I then measured it on a ring mandrel and used that as my 'size' for the art clay silver ring.  I rolled out the strip for the ring band and made the ring with the texture on the inside (it has text inside the band) and set it aside to dry.  I then rolled out a sheet of clay and textured it to match, cut the side plate, dried it and assembled and fired the art clay silver.   I had also made a little art clay silver stamp - this is my initials in reverse done with a photo polymer plate and it had a short post with a knob on it.  After firing I added a pin to the back of the plate using osp and re-firing the ring part with the post supported in a bit of kiln fibre, so that I could use the pin as a rivet (it shows on the previous picture).  I cut the texture on the top surface where the 'signet' is using a graving tool, the other marks are made using a file I have forgotten the name of (bought it from Robert Dancik).  I drilled a hole to take the peg of the signet and warmed the faux bone up so that I could push it in and it is held securely.  Filed the end of the peg smooth then inserted the silver ring into the faux bone.  I have used a bit of expoxy resin to stick the two sections together as didn't think the one rivet would really be enough - may have been if the fit had been really tight!  I then coloured the faux bone using alcohol inks and sanded then back to re-expose some of the white surface and sealed it with renaissance wax.

It has a small area cut out on the other flat surface where I put bits of gold leaf embedded in UV resin - the whole thing is really too messy for my taste but I have learned a lot in making it.

More experiments in ring making

I have spent the past few days experimenting with rings in a variety of materials.  Here are a selection of the finished rings.  The top left hand ring is resin with little pieces of cut thread embedded into it.  The top right hand ring is faux bone, art clay silver and alcohol inks. The bottom right hand ring is faux bone but before I textured it I made a mould and then poured a resin version with red thread embedded in it.  I am really enjoying my time experimenting like this, it is always good to take a break from the 'bread and butter' work and play for a while, letting new ideas bounce around the studio.

Today's ring

I was planning to go into the museum today but put it off as the weather forecast was so bad - actually turned out not to be as bad as expected, anyway, I did spend the day in the studio working on a few ideas.  Here is my Ring a day contribution for today.  This is made using a scrap of silver left in the bottom of my workbench after I had cut out the shapes making the 'Necklace for the Plant Collector's wife'.  It is made using a technique called fold forming.  This is something I was introduced to by Jill Leventon when I spent a fantastic day in her studio in Shrewsbury early  last year.  Jill will be one of the tutors at the Guild of Enamellers annual conference at Nottingham in April running a workshop on press and fold forming.

Enamel samples

Today I have been preparing enamel samples for a workshop.  It seems like ages since I did any enamelling.  I also finished a couple of pairs of earrings that have been lying around on the workbench.  One pair is the feather pattern I have drawn to make one of my photopolmer plates and is the same design I used as the basis for the 'Travel Light' ring a few days ago.