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9th Annual Art-a-Day Challenge, January 2018!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Flood Waters - complete!

Complete at last!  The original drawing and how it turned out. 
  sterling, brass, garnet, moonstones, fresh water pearl, 14kgold, 
3" x 2 1/4" x 1/4"


 Learned a lot.  More solder welds on one piece than I've ever done.  Challenging compound angles.  Depletion gilding for the first time - reheat the metal to dull red, quench and pickle (acid bath) and repeat 5 - 7 times to deplete the copper and bring the pure silver up to the surface. Setting stones isn't rocket science but I'm not comfortable with it yet. Was going to gold leaf the window - no, the roof  - no, the tree- but that's new too and would take longer than I was in the mood for.  Can always add later, I suppose. 
I thinks it's a lot sweeter than the picture captures.  :)

11 comments:

Laura Gable said...

mmm very nice! I love the sketch too and how it really did become your vision.

Bobi Wilson said...

oh yes, the depletion gilding also confirmed my suspicion the handy scrap I used for the bottom "floor" was, in fact, nickle silver which actually doesn't have any silver in it at all. no wonder it was so awkward. kind of like the contrast of the black (doesn't show in photo)

Lapoynte said...

We saw it start to finish, -pretty cool and the end product is nice.

Fort Logan Designs said...

I really like it. My husband Richard is really good about depletion gilding. He loves to polish the silver to a mirror finish. He also is better at setting stones. I can do it, I need to work on doing it more often so I can get more comfortable with it. I love how this came out. Great sense of style.

Terrie said...

It's very cool - how big is it? Is it jewelry or wall art, can't tell...

KathyT said...

I am inside about to peek out the window.

Bobi Wilson said...

Terrie, the body of the house is about the size of a quarter.
Kathy - yes -you got it! World of possibility, itty bitty living space. The ones I have in mind and on paper are more intricate and have simple interactive parts. This was a practice run before launching into gears and whatever else.
And also why I'm giving myself "a year" to play, learn and explore them.

Jim Bumgarner said...

Nice job, Bobi. You must have a ton of patience to work in this detail on this scale.

Unknown said...

I have some extra gears...

Bobi Wilson said...

Thanks for your comments, everyone!

Wendy & Richard - I figured I would be needing to make my gear (hence the "simple mechanisms" plan) though would love to take a look! I thought you were going to use them for steam punk jewelry?

Bobi Wilson said...

Thanks, Jim! The whole patience things blows me away. It's a new turn for me.