Showing posts with label mastery. Show all posts

Mastery Continues - Silver Rings

I decided to try to create something a bit more unique.  Here are a few more bands and settings I created.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Weaving Wednesday - Photos of My Work

Today for Weaving Wednesday, I decided to show you a few finished projects.  Next week we'll go back to the step by step views.


Larimar in Tarnished Copper
Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Eye of Protection in Tarnished Copper
Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Copper Tree of Life on Fluorite
Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson
Labradorite in Tarnished Copper
Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Mastery Continues - Silver

I picked up some smaller bezel wire to work on some of my flat faced cabochons.  This is my latest creation.  The ring shank is made from 16 and 18 gauge sterling silver wire; the bezel from fine silver and the stone is a Rutilated Quartz. The back has a small heart cut into the silver plate to allow the light to come behind the stone.


Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Mastery Continues - Etching Day 2

So I had some interest in the the metal etching so Hubby made these two really cool pendants which we will be carrying in the shop now.  I am going to have him rotate the crescent moon a bit to make it more Hecate and less Diana but yea I love it.  I also ended up finishing three sterling silver rings and two pendants.  I love how they turned out. 

Here's my work!  




Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson


Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson


Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson


Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Mastery Continues - Silver & Etching

So last week was a total let down in the mastery department.  This weekend I decided to work on a few sterling silver pendants and test out some etching.

When things go wrong, all you can do is just keep trying. This week I had one piece that was really giving me trouble.  I just said, you know what, keep going.  I had Hubby take a photo of me in the sanding process.  This was the Labradorite that I was working on.


Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson


Here are the photos from the rest of the projects.



Photography Renee Sosanna Olson
Metal Etching Elijah Olson

Photography Renee Sosanna Olson
Metal Etching Elijah Olson
Photography Renee Sosanna Olson
Metal Etching Elijah Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson



Here's what the etching process looks like.





Here's my finished work.


Mastery Continues ... Sort of

Sometime there are those days when nothing seems to go right.  Today was that day.  I spent all day trying to get some pieces done.  Yes, I know I'm practicing.  I know I need to just be patient and work harder on mastering the basics but damn.  Everything I touched turned to crap today.

Here's what mistakes look like.


Lets start with making a ring with three pieces of metal.  A center band and two wire circles.  Sometimes they just don't line up and it just looks a mess.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 Next I was working on creating rune rings in sterling silver.  I heated the wires too much and they warped.  Once bent like that they never straighten back up.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 Here I used too much solder.  You can see the big glob in the center.  I could probably heat it again and try to fix it but I was afraid I would melt the center wire like I did on the last one.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 This one started out really nice.  I had a great stone and the bezel was perfect.  As I was closing the bezel around the stone, the stone shattered.  I had to dig it out and replace it with another stone. As you can see this stone is smaller than the one I had before and the bezel is out of shape at the top.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 This one is a little wonky.  You can see the bezel is twisted and is not straight on the ring shank creating the oval leaning to one side.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 This one I was making a rune ring and I over heated the center, the pieces blew to the top and bottom creating what appears to be a double line.
Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 Even my wire weaving was bad today.  In this one I used the wrong gauge base wire and created this super chunky rink  It is so heavy.  I need to just cut that wire off and start over.

Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
 Finally there's this one.  Yeah it is a mess.  All the wires melted, over heated and then fused in the wrong place.  Over all it was a pretty bad day.
Photographer & Jeweler - Renee Sosanna Olson
I shared this because I know sometimes as an artist I only want to share my best work.  I want people to see the good things.  But in those good things; sometimes bad things happen too.  I have to just take a big deep breath and try again.  I'm going to order some new supplies now as this disaster tapped out my stash.  Hopefully next time I'll have something better to share with you.


Mastery Continues - Silver

I've begun working with Silver over the last month or so.  I wanted to share some photos of my work. I would really like to do the soldering with the copper but for some reason I can't get the copper just right so that the copper solder doesn't turn gray on the copper piece.

Here are some photos from my work.  You can find them for sale on my website and on Facebook.



Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Jeweler & Photographer - Renee Sosanna Olson

Mastery - Jewelry - Moving to Sterling Silver

So this weekend I started working with Sterling Silver.  I was pretty nervous but I think they turned out pretty well.

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography & Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson
You can find my jewelry available on my Facebook Page, my Website or in my Etsy Shop.