Book Reviews: Drawing Jewels for Fashion and Introduction to Precious Metals

My time at Penland brought me back to 'metals' reality, in that just as much as I need to work in the studio, I also need to study the properties of working with metal and sketching/designing a look.

I purchased both of these books to give me examples and lessons in understanding the finer details of fully sketching a design as well as understanding the intricate properties of how metals react to each other and the work we put them through. 

Drawing Jewels for Fashion is a beautifully made book, the sketches are precise and provide a glimpse into the designers of major fashion houses and jewelry companies and where these designers find inspiration, their design process and influence.  The binding of the book is unique too, not glossy or with a print cover that comes undone but a pressed book that feels handmade. 

Some of my favorite designers are featured, such as Solange Azagury-Patridge, Stephen Webster and several others.  I was impressed that most of the designers featured had backgrounds in GIA certification and actually made the prototypes or designed the initial pieces in wax.  

I highly recommend Drawing Jewels for Fashion for anyone that is building a jewelry library collection. 

This book can be purchase on Amazon.

Jana Brevick had Introduction to Precious Metals during our session at Penland, and she drew upon the charts and information from this book quite a bit.  Mark Grimwade is a veteran in the metalsmithing field and is constantly called upon by the Santa Fe Symposium to host workshops and demos on using precious metals.  You can tell by his thorough and indepth knowledge of metals by his detailed graphs, photos and chemistry references that Mark is an expert in the field.

I'm just into the first chapter of the book but I'll say that it is a good read, not too 'sciencey' and very, very necessary for anyone working with metals in general, doesn't even need to be just gold or silver.  It's unfortunate that my program at ECU we aren't required to read books covering metals or manipulation of materials.

This is another highly recommended book and reference tool in the studio.

Also on Amazon.

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Penland: Melt Class Post 2

Last week Jana showed us how to pour ingots and then make alloys of copper and fine silver.  As you know, I am a bit of a fan of melting metal and I truly enjoyed being a 'mad scientist' and creating my range of 7 alloy (some did samples from 9 parts pure silver/1 part copper and to the other end of the spectrum 1 part silver and 9 parts copper).

It's been very interesting watching the process of how the metal responds to forming, drawing out to wire etc.  What I've noticed is that the alloys at the higher end of the spectrum are more malleable and the ones in the middle, say 30/70 and 40/60 are more brittle.

This week we're finishing some pieces we made in class and also experimenting with gold alloys - which is so very exciting.  That'll be my next post and I'll share with you some stories about my classmates.

below are photos of Jana in action.

Thank you for reading!

Jana melting her metals (in kooky outfit - Jana's style)

The red hot ingot.

Pouring a sheet of pure silver ingot.

Jana showing us how to repair flashings from the ingot.

 

And Jana's wedding ring.  Lori Talcot made it for her...I'm a bit obsessed with it!

Silver and Copper alloys ranging from 10 % silver/90% copper to 90% silver/10% copper.

Some of our alloyed samples drawn into wire or flattened.

Iron and gold alloy...not sure what can be done with this, it's too hard!

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Penland: Melt workshop with Jana Brevick

 It has been one week since I've been at Penland and for some reason it feels like a month.  Time seems to be warped when you're here, which can be good but also, I am getting a bit homesick.  However, I've put that out of my mind because time here is precious and wonderful.

The first several days were sweltering hot, but now it has been raining and cooled off, which many of us were grateful for since there is no central AC at Penland.

The Melt workshop has been very educational, we've been testing and making samples of our fine silver and copper alloys, which has been very fun.  However we've been restless too, it's hard not to want to immediately make something with our alloyed samples, I think that's what will happen next week.  My plan is to make an Alloyed mixture necklace, ring and cuff. 

Below are several photos from my first week here.  I have many more, so stay tuned!

The view from the Craft House, where most of the workstudy women stay.

The relaxing rocking chairs on the porch of the Craft house.

The Lower Metals studio, where our class is being taught.

Jana getting all set up at her bench.  I love her large glasses!

The view from my bench.

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