laurieopal | Entries tagged with opal

The ear piece I designed is finished and I managed to get a good photo - the opal is still more beautiful than the photo but it's a good picture. The design came out beautifully.

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I measures about 1' across and hangs from an ear cuff that's not in the photo. I wanted to get a close shot of the design and the opal. It's from the collection of Fred Teti.

The stick pin with the glorious dichroic glass by Nancy Pearlman is also done and I have a good photo but I'll have to wait til the woman who commissioned it gets it. And it looks like I may get a few more glass pieces from Nancy, that would be fabulous since she's retired and isn't working at her glass anymore.

The really amazing druze just needs to be set now. The design is clouds an obscured sun and waves. And the flint knapped arrowhead ring is also at the point of being set. I'm finally taking some down time but will be back at work next week. My cat will be delighted.

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George delighted

I just finished the wax carving of the phoenix I've been writing about. I'm really happy with it. The tail feathers are set with 2 purple sapphires and a diamond in the center feather. It's a Chinese phoenix.

And the opal below is being set in a Japanese landscape setting with a waterfall, I've been has been developing for quite a while. It's a magnificent stone.

Opal is about 1.5"

I had a good day.

But last week I had the first casting failure in about 5 years on a carving with one of the silver pearls. (I put up their photo a while ago.) It was very disappointing but it was a design I was working on for my collection rather then a commission. And casting is an art not a science - so once in 5 years is really good.

Tomorrow I'll mostly be polishing.

I just finished a wax carving for a gorgeous kyanite with rubies. The setting was influenced by late Monet water lily paintings. I grew up in the Modern Museum in NYC and I love think upon on the paintings I grew up with.

It required a kind of precision and design that was time consuming and a pleasure. (Somehow I think I've said that before.)

I just got two colored sapphires in varied shades of orange/red to be accents on a pendant with a very vivid lightning ridge opal. It's always hard to find small precious stones that work with vivid opal colors really well.

I'm very sorry I'm missing Boskone but I am doing work that is making me very happy.

I’m finishing the miniature of the Irish setter puppy. It’s very detailed and I keep doing a little more work.

And I’m also doing more work on an opal pendant/sculpture that I thought was done but now I want to put a few last touches on it.

The photo is of the opal for that pendant/sculpture. It’s 2 inches high and simply stunning. I’ll put of a photo of the finished design.

I’ve been working on a very painterly piece of Fordite that’s going to be a large tack (pin). I’m doing very subtle patterns in the wax that will set off the vivid colors in silver.

And I’ve finished the next to final version of a 7-section abstract asymmetrical silver and diamond necklace. Now I need to let it sit for a while before I make the final changes.

And I'm working on a major pendant/sculpture with a stunning opal.

The photograph is of a pendant set with rock crystal that has goethite inclusions. Only goethite would have the red flashes. (The white in the photo is a lamp reflection.) It’s about 1 inch high and the design is in silver.

Goethite (FeO(OH)), (pronunciation: /ˈɡɜːrtaɪt/ gur-tite) named after the German polymath and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), an iron bearing hydroxide mineral of the diaspore group, is found in soil and other low-temperature environments. Goethite has been well known since ancient times for its use as a pigment (brown ochre). Evidence has been found of its use in paint pigment samples taken from the caves of Lascaux in France. It was first described in 1806 based on samples found in the Hollertszug Mine.

This is from Wikepedia. I had no idea that the stone was named after Goethe.

I love the red flashes.

Cross posted as laurieopal on livejouranl

I'm taking time away from working on designs for Boskone to post tonight. I have 2 brilliant Ethiopian opal pendants, one delicate and one held by large jelly fish, a gorgeous large muticolored moss agate and a lovely complex serpentine. They are all in process. Will put up some photos of them next week,

This is a stunning opal in an ocean reef setting. The stone really spoke ocean to be and it was a joy to work with. From the collection of Barbara Erickson. Pendant is sterling silver about 1.75 inches.

I love cephalopods!

I think I've written previously about the challenge of making these 2 stones work aesthetically together in a ring. It was challenging but I'm extremely pleased with the design. It would not have been challenging in a pendant but a ring is a very confined space.

As the title says stones are hyalite (white and clear stone) which is a kind of opal and an opal cabochon.

Ring is sterling about 1.5" high from the collection of Barb Moermond.

Spent most of yesterday doing the preliminary polishing on an group of pendants. Will be working on them more tomorrow. And it wax I'm carving a standing bird with a flaring muticolored pearl wing

I'm back on LJ after a long period of working very intensely in wax. I have a group of designs finished and will be posting their photos after the folks who commissioned them receive them.

Designs include a stunning collawood with blue topaz, a lava and moonstone pendant in 14kt, and a large beautiful tear drop opal and 14kt with an especially interesting back. I always make sure that the backs of my work are also art but this one is special.

This is and opal and sterling pendant from the collection of Nancy Cobb. Opal is more brilliant then the photo. Opals are always hard to photograph. White near the top of the stone is a light reflection.

(cross-posted on livejournal)

I've been working on a complicated design problem for a while. It's a ring with a asymmetrical hyalite triangle and a long narrow brilliant opal with a lot of red flash. Hyalite is a form of opal with a glassy and clear appearance. This one is white and shot with brilliant lights.

The shapes are not naturally compatible and so the design difficulty. But I've solved it with a ring design that creates a balance and harmony with the two stunning stones. I still need to do a fair amount of work and carved textures on it but the essential design problem is solved.

<div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/laurieopal/19175062/69863/69863_300.jpg" title="" /></div><div>Pendant is sterling "world" with a blue chalcedony satelite crossing it.  From the collectionof River Curtis-Stanley.

I'm ging back to carving.</div>

(cross-posted on livejournal as laurieopal)

My photograph for the Chinese exhibition in Shenyang arrived there!! So I can relax about that. I'll be writing a post about it soon. It opens on April 15th.

If you read Body Impolitic the site is back up. It was down most of last week becasue of a malware attack but thanks to our webmaster things are back to normal. Deb just put up a great links post

I've been carving waxes intensely and the pearl dragonfly and several other pieces are cast. Next is polishing and setting. It's great to be settling in to do lots of design work.

Photo is of a boulder opal jelly fish that was made for Elyse Seigle. The idea of using this opal for a jelly fish was hers. As soon as she suggested it I realized how perfect it was and was rather shocked that it had not occurred to me. There is a very delicate ruby floating on the jelly fish tentacle. It's silver and about 1.5"