Term 1, Week 2
Stone Setting in Metal Clay
Instructions
One pair of silver clay earrings with at least one fireable cubic zirconia stone per earring. The two earrings are identical and feature hand-shaped earring wires.
Silver clay pendant with one bezel set stone (made using a fine silver bezel cup).
Silver clay pendant with one dichroic glass setting.
Earrings
I originally chose a star design for the earrings which would include three stars in a row, attached to chains. I found this very difficult to achieve a result worthy of what was in my head. Two of the stars would have tiny cubic zirconia stones embedded in them. I liked the design of these but the execution was not good. Where the stars were layered one on top of the other, it was difficult to get a perfect finish and one of the points on a star broke off. The top star was far too thin and would be likely to break, so I removed this from the design. I will return to this at a later date - and will make them much better.
I decided to ditch these in favour of a simpler design as in the picture above. The texture of these was from a vintage jewellery box of my mum’s. I fired these deep in carbon as I found that some blue stones would change colour to a deep red while firing. Using carbon helps the stone to keep its colour.
Bezel set pendant
The stone in this project had to be set in a pre-made bezel cup. The stone and cup that was supplied did not fit together so I sourced a lovely amethyst. I again layered the clay to a good thickness to take the bezel cup. This time the layers worked really well. I used a mixture of texture and high shine.
Dichroic Glass set pendant
This stone was a new material for me. Dichroic glass is designed to change colour under different lighting conditions and viewing angles. The word dichroic comes from two Greek roots: “di” meaning two and “chroma” meaning colour. I have never used glass of any type before in my jewellery. It is a lovely stone and the design came about very organically. I cut a tear shape in clay for the back plate and the front plate I cut out a smaller tear and textured it with a texture mat. there is a gap in the top of the stone and I was worried the stone would move when fired. I had nothing to worry about! The stone is perfectly set and the gap in the top works well.
