Over 20 years ago I made a kinetic earrings in copper. Then in 2016 I made them again but I used gold and silver. 
Sometime after moving here to Texas in 2017 I lost one of the gold ones and the remaining one was sitting in my jewelry box waiting for me to make another, single one, so I once again had a pair. 
I finally did that about a week ago.

I pulled out the left over 18Kt. sheet and wire and a piece of sterling silver. I then printed the drilling template and glued it to the sheets followed by drilling the holes, deburring them, and cutting out the disks and forming the domes.
Then came the nervous part - soldering the two halves together. Gold is soooooo expensive now that I was terrified of melting either half and ruining it.

But I stayed calm and carried on!

I first soldered some medium solder on the silver half near the rims in about 5 places. I actually pickled the piece too. I then fluxed really well on the inside of the silver and gold pieces and placed them together and held them their with cross clamping tweezers followed by fluxing the seam on the outside. Using the propane/oxygen torch I then slowly heated the bead until the flux turned glasses and then focused the heat on the seam until I saw the silvery line of melted solder show through in one place. I then started heating the rest of the seam until I had done the entire thing. 
SUCCESS!! and not a single melted spot. 

I cut the existing bead off the silver hanger and off the existing ear wire. I would make new ones so the earrings matched.

​As the bead rested in the pickle I used the 20 ga. 18Kt. wire to make new ear wires and I made silver circles to slip the bead(s) onto which would then be attached to the ear wires. 

Waaaayyyy back in February bought an impression die of a raised fist and I wanted to use the die to make a new pin for my hat. I planned on stamping the word RESIST around it. I was so busy with school that even during Spring break I did not get around to making it.  Since the semester ended 3+ weeks ago I have been either catching up on my sleep, sewing a quilt for Elisa of Scotland, or cleaning the first floor of the house. - Those things are now done so I decided to take a break from cleaning this week and make that pin.
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There was one thing I had to learn first... I wanted to teach myself how to make a pin back. To be honest those 3 piece pin backs (hinge, pin, and clasp) are tiny and fiddly to work with. I have been watching YouTube videos and I even bought a book and I even bought some lapel pins with catches to try too. 

I started at 930 am - anneal, pickle, wash, press, press, repeat. Then stamp, saw, file/sand, cut wire, solder, pickle, bend pin back into shape, polish and by 4pm I had one complete pin and put it on my hat. The second pin will be finished tomorrow when I will form the pin back and then the entire thing will be polished.  

Back in December or January I received the workshop schedule from The Craft Guild of Dallas. I have wanted to take a week long workshop there since I (we) moved to Texas, eight years ago and this time I found one to take. 
In July Master Chaser and Teacher Fabrizio Acquafresca will be teaching an advanced class and YES!!! I signed up for it.
​Recently I wrote to him to ask questions about a project I have wanted to do for a while. It is inspired by Liza Nechamkin Glasser's Triscuit Cracker Dish.   My project will be a series of plates or platters called See Food - and each one will have a type of Sea food - Shrimp, Lobster, Flounder, Clams, etc... I don't know how many I will end up doing but the ideas are endless. Back to the email I sent to Fabrizio; he said it was a good idea that I should bring a copper plate that is 20 ga. thick along with a pitch board, my tools and hammers.

I took an entire day to plan the project using Adobe Illustrator. I am using vectors because I can then scale the design to any size but I started with drawing a 12" circle with a 9" circle inside that; this is the plate with the inner circle the flat center portion and the 1.5" outer area as the border of the plate; this is the first layer. The second later is a whole lobster in it's shell and it covers the plate from rim to rim. The third layer is parsley and lemon wedges.   I have printed it out over 4 pages and taped them together. Now I have to trace it so I can transfer it to the plate and THEN I will be ready for the workshop

Since spring break ended, school - specifically the amount of homework has been crazy and I am only taking 3 classes. 
I have registered for the Fall 2025 semester. I will only take 2 classes: Introduction to Print Making and Introduction to Metal. Print Making should be fun as silk screening, registration, image development and more is taught and yes, I probably know everything that will be taught in Beginning Metal but I am hoping to refine some of my basic skills; besides it is requirement for the more advanced metal classes. 

Here are some pictures of my recent projects but not the final projects; those I will post when the semester has ended in 2 weeks. 
​The first 5 are from Studio 2, then 3 from Core 2, and lastly 1 from Beginning Drawing.
Click the image to have it open larger.
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We have reached mid-term and Spring Break has begun.
I get a week of not driving to campus and back but I do have some homework. 
This semester, so far, has been very stressful due to the quantity of homework AND the size of the assignments.  
My grades are still good - in the A range though there are many assignments I am not enjoying and don't give it my all yet still get a high grade. It makes one one what it takes to not get an A??

Being in art classes, we don't really have mid-term or final exams; what we have is a larger project. Here's what I have for my three classes:
Studio 2: An animation, that's called a living drawing, using charcoal. Unlike a flip-book, it's all drawn/erased/changed on one piece of paper. It is very dirty and messy.  I finished mine last week but cause I did not spend as much time drawing as I could have. BUT I had to spend over 12 hours de-skewing and aligning the images so the animation wasn't so jerky.   because I finished the animation early, I have started on the next module which is Compositions; this is digital and physical collages. The first part is the digital compositions using open source imagery with Photoshop to assemble 4 different pieces. I have 6 ideas and have finished the first one. During the break, I will start to work on the second. I will post all when they are done
 
Beginning Drawing: I will have a portfolio review. This is where the teacher looks at my 30+ daily drawings (6 weeks x 5 days/per week) and I have to upload all the work we did in class. Again, there is one of the weekly drawings below. For the homework over break I am to do a few sketches of models, i.e. people, from an website that has these types of pictures. 
These are to be timed - 2, 5 and 10 minutes; I might go Picasso on these since my skill in drawing life objects is horrible.

Core 2: Finish a photography assignment about the use of color outside the studio along with staging the scene. We have to submit 32 pictures - half are before we staged, the other half is the staged picture. I decided to use the Lalique vase we have with a bright LED light, in it along with 3 colored gels and I have taken the pictures of it in random places; it's slightly reminiscent of the 2001: Space Odyssey Plinth being in various places, again there is a picture below. For my homework, since we are moving into the next module of Typography, is to take 50+ pictures of everyday things with "text". 

Besides the homework I have to do, I plan on relaxing, meeting friends for lunch or dinner, binding the Klimt quilts

This week in Beginning Drawing we learned and played with shading and tone. On Tuesday we did different types of shading with graphite pencils - lines, cross hatching of lines, shading with and without blending and smudging and even shading using few and many tiny marks like asterisks, stars, triangles. This is the first picture below.
Yesterday we used charcoal for a fun exercise of a mosaic drawing. Everyone in class was given a small rectangle of a larger picture which none of us were allowed to see. We have to draw our piece on LARGE paper (18"x24") using charcoal and then blend, erase, smudge and get our hands very dirty. When we were done, we assembled them on the wall to see how well and different our drawings were. My assigned piece is the 2nd picture in the top row, then my drawing which used lots of interpretive dance. Then the assembled images and lastly a close up of my drawing in the bottom right corner of the mosaic.

On a side note, I am learning to NOT stress about this class. We are learning about drawing and various drawing mediums, papers, tools, and concepts and I am slowly embracing my drawings NOT being good and doing what I can; this certainly makes it much more enjoyable

For the past two weeks, the Core II class has focused on the Camera Obscura - the module is about image making.
There has been research and strong proof that the Renaissance masters used it as shown in this great video to watch. It is also thought, based upon other evidence, that the ancient Greeks may have used it too. 

For this project we had to make a camera and then take pictures with it.  I cut out the cardboard and build my camera with a 4x lens 2 weeks ago; a piece of tracing paper was used as the focal plane. When I tested it I found that I could not get any image to focus because the length of the camera box was too short for the size lens I had purchased; it was 4" in diameter. Instead of ordering a smaller 4x lens, I rebuilt the camera with a much, much longer length and after some tests, I was able to trim about 4" off the backend. 

The second part was to come up with a concept and take 30+ pictures. My concept was Victorian-esk. I chose this because the Victorians were obsessed with recording death pictures, seances, spiritualism, memento mori, and the like. I have not done research into why this was so but I theorize that's it is related to Queen Victoria's never ending mourning over Prince Albert, grave robbing for profit or to provide bodies to anatomist, and cameras being more prevalent by the upper class.  For my pictures I decided to use some of the deer bones I have collected and to go into the woods on the property and take pictures of the bones and/or tree that are slightly out of focus, disorienting, and eerie.

Here are pictures - my camera, the test pictures, and my submissions.

In December of last year, I went to The Makery, in Bulverde, to use the electric hydraulic press for a few deep dies I had.
I pressed a Viking, and 3 different Deco women warriors.  Over New Years weekend I turned on of the women into a key fob for Elisa of Scotland. The pressing was in 18 gauge sterling silver with a 14 gauge square wire frame and loop. I was supervised by Boots. Enjoy the pictures

Back in 2014 I participated in an art project called A Hundred For One. I made a link for the project of a baby squid based upon an image from a book of plates by a 1700's Naturalist Albertus Seba. I decided during Studio I to draw the plates. I did the front of the squid in the beginning of December, it took 3 attempts to get the proportions correct. I then traced it and transferred it to a clean piece of paper so I could color it. I then started on the back which then got put on hold due to finals and other tasks that had to be taken care of, around the house, when the semester ended. I slowly finished the sketch, transferred it a fresh sheet of paper and yesterday I spent the afternoon coloring it. 
I am starting a new drawing inspired by the fallen Ash leaves in my drive way which will be the first art of 2025, stay tuned.

The semester has ended and there were a few final projects and some drawing I did at home.
I finished drawing the squid and coloring it. I drew the bell pepper again, twice and then colored it with water color pencils and regular colored pencils. I also made a cardboard assembly of mid-century modern shapes to invoke a feeling/emotion; thenI  set up a light to cast shadows on the wall. It was then colored - I chose various blues to add to my feeling of "chill"/cozy. 
​I now get to relax until the next semester starts in mid-January