Sunday, July 01, 2012

New Designs: Fuchsias

I'm revisiting fuchsia flowers, with which I have a periodic history. Everytime I see them in the nursery here in the spring, I have flashbacks to a patio full of them when we lived in California. Luckily, I snap out of it and remind myself that I now live under the Texas death star.

fuchsia earring sketches
 Yesterday, while drawing up some new simpler earring designs, I thought that maybe fuchsias would be fun and possibly easier to make than birds. Notice the bud shape on the pair of earrings to the right -- I think that's where the idea came from. My birds are hand-formed, and they just keep getting more and more detailed. To make some lower cost earrings, I need to cut my labor down.

fuchsia flowers & leave (& 1 bud)
hand formed from fine silver clay
waiting to be cleaned and fired
Fuchsias were easier to do that I thought they might be, after I ran through several experiments on  how to make the sepals and petals. Today I will make the stamens, fire the flowers, and then try fusing the fine silver onto the argentium bases.