Lately I’ve been absorbed in making lots of earrings for the holiday season, using my new granulation skills. I’ve found fusing to be an easy and surprisingly speedy way to assemble things. Anyone who has experimented with granulation knows that the main problem is making the granules. My friend Iris solved this problem for me, […]
Author Archives: Lillian Jones
The Beauty of Portability: Working at the Beach
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
My friend Iris was in town this week, to enjoy the hurricane in Wilmington, NC. After it blew over, I joined her down at the Carolina coast for a few days of jewelry talk, fancy food and beach. Because this is our passion, we are both happiest while working. So she used her new technology […]
Enameling Again
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Christmas is coming, and the elves are all doing production work, with the hope that someone, somewhere will have some money to spend. For the last week I’ve been making granulated earrings that all look alike. Not very entertaining…so this week I worked on a pair of enamel earrings for a sample for a class […]
Granulation meets Biology
Monday, August 1, 2011
Design is the final frontier of any technique. Making a personal statement with granulation is difficult, because granulation has definite character. This week’s earrings for the Betty McKim Earring Challenge uses multiple techniques, and begins to explore the nexus between geometry and biology. On my bench I have these bases to start with. Being a […]
From Geometry to Jellyfish
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The past few years I have struggled with my affinity for the circle. It just seemed too easy, but recently I have decided to just go with it. After all, there are lots of interesting things that are circular: planets, hubcaps and hurricanes. This is one of a series of triskele enamels, with tri-fold symmetry. […]
Turning a Sow’s Ear into a Silk Purse
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Gone are the days when I tossed my mistakes into the little box on my bench. Silver is just too expensive to treat without the proper respect, and perhaps that is as it should be. Even though anything that could go wrong did, I decided to fix the meltdown to use for my Betty McKim […]
Sad Day in Granulationland
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Just when I was feeling pretty good, like, this is great! I have it under control! comes the cosmic reminder that pride goes before a fall. The last pair of green earrings had a great enamel effect, one that I had never seen before. I had heated the piece so hot that the enamel had […]
Granulation using Plating
Sunday, July 17, 2011
When fusing things together, I have realized that there are several approaches, that have their place. There is straight-up fusing, using just the torch. This is the best when you are trying to flow the metal across a gap. It requires a lot of heat control, because you are working mainly at melting temperature, and […]
Fusing for Granulation
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Granulation, as anyone reading blogs on Ganoksin already knows, is about fusing. Fusing is a solderless way of joining, in my case, silver. If I was an Etruscan, it might be gold or gold and silver alloys. It works great, within a limited range, and is a really fast way to assemble things. No fiddling […]
Yes, but can you Enamel on it?
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Now that I have granules and made lots of round granulated objects, I need to figure out how to enamel on these things. Mainly because I committed myself to teach a class in this, so I guess I better figure it out. It is all fine silver, so what could go wrong? (Famous Last Words) […]