Creating a Custom (Part 2)

After seeing Meg’s work on the first half of this piece, I was very excited to get to work on my half. Many artists would send progress pictures to the client at this point. In this instance, the client was a returning customer and gave us complete freedom, so we opted to keep him in the dark until completion (he wound up loving it!). Lets dive into the last steps that I took to get this custom finished up.

Bail.

A bail is the component on a piece of jewelry that the chain passes through. In this instance I opted to use 16g half-round wire for the bail.

I followed the shape and curves of the original design we had drawn up. Making sure to leave enough space for a chain to pass through.

Adding the trillion.

As requested by the client, I added a topaz. Opting for the trillion cut allowed me to fill the triangular space between the lower portion of the bail wires.

Finishing Up

The overall methodology behind completion was filling the space while following the established flow and structure.

The piece had a clearly defined flow and to finish I added some coils following the flow of the bail.

There was still space in between the trillion and the bail wires, so I added filler wire to bring the piece together.

Oxidized.

We opted to oxidize this piece. There are a lot of cool textures going on with these components, and there are small amounts of tasteful gold in the piece.

By oxidizing and polishing we are able to enhance those textures and get the gold to pop.

For a complete step-by-step tutorial on oxidizing, click here.