Blue Nile necklace

Blue Nile necklace
Blue agate, Oxidized copper
©2012 Nayna Studios™

Have you seen a kid in a candy store with those wide eyes and dazed look? Well that is exactly what happens to me every time I go into  my favourite bead shop :) The last time I was there I managed to get a bag full of agates in various sizes and shapes ( did I mention that dazed look ?  I never take the time to figure out what exactly I am going to be creating with the particular stone, so I pretty much have had this blue agate with me for more than six months. Of course storing beads and stones is not a problem as that simply gives me a chance to buy  more bead storage boxes! 

But that is a story for another day. Recently as I was rumaging through my stone collection I came upon this piece and inspiration struck! A lovely blue agate with some black matrix( viens) running through it.

A close up of the chain maille

A close up of the bezel set blue agate and repousse pendant.

For the longest time I had been wanting to use some chain maille on a necklace and I finally got a chance to do that ! The pendant itself is repousse` with some texturing and the chain maille in byzantine chain maille.

Granulation- pack rat style!

Lately having seen a lot of fold forming work by a metal artists around the world, I too am thinking of experimenting with the technique and here are my baby steps !

Pod cuff with folded pod
Oxidized copper
©2012 Nayna Studios™

 I created this cuff with just the central element the 'pod' with some folding on its sides. I managed to click some pictures ( sorry about the quality of the pics, they were clicked on my mobile phone) Below is a step by step account of my favourite technique 'granulation'

Those cute little granules of copper that you see here within the pod.

When it comes to my copper scrap I am a pack rat! I keep every tiny piece of scrap and filing that I can collect and use these to create the granueles

The way I create these granules is that I  take an approriate quantity of copper scrap and flux it , followed by a very quick heating with my trusty soldering gun.
Well here goes !

Applying flux to the scrap of copper prior to balling

Heating the scrap till it glows a red orange and finally balls up
( note my pile of scrap!! :D)

Placing the granules on the pod shape prior to soldering them

Unfortunately could not photograph the pod being folded but hope you enjoyed the little peak into my studio!

Put your best face forward!

At a recently concluded jewellery exhibition I had the honour of my college professor drop by, despite his busy schedule and many commitments. As we sat talking about the college days and he gave me an in-depth critique of my work, we talked about different techniques and design elements and that really got me nostalgic. 

You might wonder what the face on the right embossed in copper has anything to do with my college days well, for my graduate work in the last year of college I was required to do a dissertation on a subject of my choice, which happened to be masks! I had created a variety of masks in different metals ranging from lead, to nickel silver and of course my all time fav copper! 

      I recently saw another faboulous and one of my favourite artist Laurie Kern who works under the name 'The Adventurous Silversmith' create an absolutely gorgeous and award winning Cuff named 'Calamari Cuff'. It was basically a Calamari (Squid) worked with the repousse` technique in silver. If you know me you know I work in Copper and since there I was with my college days fresh in my memory, I came up with you guessed it ' Two face cuff' a cuff with repousse`d faces on it. There is nothing special about  the faces except well this is the first time I did a bit of repousse` work in my jewellery. In this second image you can see the faces starting to get more pronounced.

Two face cuff
© 2012 Nayna Studios™
Repousse` copper and oxidized finish

      Unfortunately there are no pics of the piece in further stages but here it is all done.

Two face cuff
© 2012 Nayna Studios™
Repousse` copper and oxidized finish

I gave it a flattened wire soldered edge and textured the space between the spaces to help the faces stand out.