What this has allowed me to do is fabricate one of a kind pieces with surface adornments that are very difficult to achieve in traditional metalsmithing techniques other than casting. Even using casting, some of the surface ornamentation would be very laborious to duplicate in wax. Also, the fine silver is much slower to tarnish. I thought I would include a bit on how some of my pieces have developed, and give you a chance to learn something of the process, from the inside out.
The ring pictured above is one of a limited series that I call the Calla Lily. It features Calla Lily shaped petals along each side of the textured shank and silver granules frame the Koroit boulder opal. The series will be limited to an addition of 20, although I have only made 4 so far. The one you see here is #3 and is in my own personal collection. #4 has a natural black opal from the Lightning Ridge mine in Australia, and it is pictured on my new Sculptural Fine Silver page.
Above are the two other Calla Lily rings that I have completed so far. They display differences in face size, granulation design, lily petal size and patination colors.
The patina is caused by a treatment with Liver of Sulfur or Lime Sulfur. This is one of the same techniques that the Native Americans have used to impart a blackish coloration to their silver jewelry since the early 1900's. One of the diffferences here is the time of exposure and several additives that are involved with the working solution. For these two I chose ruddier tones. Below is a view of the first of the two above before it was treated with LOS.
