Hello friends! It's been awhile since I've last posted (sorry) but luckily Azzara has been writing about some cool things including Jason Wu for Target.
I've been taking this "lost wax casting" jewelry and metalsmithing class for winter session and I love it so far. Wax casting is basically using our little alcohol lamp flames and dental tools to shape wax into all sorts of shapes and textures. After the wax is ready, you attach it to a "tree" of sorts that allows the liquid metal to flow and distribute evenly within the plaster cast. The wax is burned out, the metal poured in, and voila, a piece of jewelry! After the piece cools down you use tons of drills and pickling solution to finish and polish the metal. Today we got back our first cast pieces ever so I thought I'd share some photos of the process in case any of you were curious. I could definitely see myself doing more of this in the future. It's so fun to mold the wax and create something magical out of nothingness.
This is the bronze metal tree that the whole class shared. The rings are attached by "sprues" which are the branch shapes that join to the tree cone.
This is my piece it's been cut off the tree (sprues still attached)
Again from a different angle.
This is after the pendant has been placed in the pickling solution, scrubbed clean with a copper brush, polished, sprues have been detached.
The final piece!
After scrounging in my jewelry box I could only find this long chain with tiny pearls and an evil eye attached. I kinda like how it all looks together. More photos and projects to come. Our next project is to create a ring inspired by food (one of my favorite things) or a feast. I think I'm going to do some sort of double ring since I've never had one of those. Also I'm excite because I bought some silver to try out too even though I do like the effect of the bronze a lot.
VvV Amanda
