all about bird skulls

It's been quite difficult to work in the workshops over the past few weeks as we've had no access to gas for normal soldering operations and have been forced to work only with the PUK spark-welder and a hydrogen-oxygen micro-welder.

I decided to start playing around with some ideas for the "Global Jewellery Challenge" which is a Flickr-based project for jewellers around the world. The next challenge is to make something based on bird skulls. Loads of research and drawings later, I came up with some ideas which were arrived at largely from the fact that I can neither anneal or solder large sections of metal.

The first piece was made from found plastic:

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This came from a pattern I made in paper and the main form is "folded" together by heating the plastic with a hairdryer and then forming it over clay. The pattern for this works so well that I also made one in silver, much smaller:



I really like both of these pieces and especially like the small silver skull, set with a very fine sapphire and a spessartine garnet.

That is all I'll be making before the first week in January as it is now holiday time!
HOORAY!!