A look at fall 2010 fashion trends
Tagged enamel
A Design a Day – Day 265 (Recognizing Milestones)
Musing on 265 days of posting a design a day, the benefits, challenges and a pendant drawing in honor of a very important person in my life
A Design a Day – Day 149
An apple a day…
Happy Valentine’s Day!
A Design a Day – Day 88
When I set out to design the details on the jeweled box for my parents, I was thinking of the ornate and lavish decorations in the interior of Sintra’s Palácio Nacional. Many rooms are a riot of color; gilded and painted ceilings paired with blue and white tiled walls which depict various courtly scenes:
One room, in particular, is quite eye-catching. The entire ceiling is constructed of gilded panels depicting swans in different poses:
This motif became the inspiration for the inside of my jeweled box:
I chose to render the swan body as a baroque pearl. I also gave the swan a pavé diamond neck and emerald eyes. In addition to having a collar of yellow gold, my swan is standing on a base of malachite. The inside of the box is finished with maroon and blue enamel. Here is the finished rendering in its entirety:
I presented this rendering to my parents this past weekend when they came to visit and celebrate an early Christmas with me. This is one of those renderings that looks even better in real life than it does scanned for computer. You’ll just have to invite yourself over to tea at my parent’s if you want to see it “live.”
A Design a Day – Day 87
Yesterday I posted a sketch, CAD rendering, and a detailed pencil drawing for the jeweled box I designed for my parents. Here is the finished painted version of the closed jeweled box:
I chose to render this jeweled box showing yellow flowers with blue ribbons in enamel on a white enameled background, along with yellow gold trim, small melee diamonds, a blue cabochon sapphire, and a carved amethyst bead on the top of the box. These rich colors are common in the tile work found in Portugal, as well as in the lovely porcelain Vista Alegra ceramics. Tomorrow I’ll post a picture of the box open to reveal the surprise inside!
A Design a Day – Day 71 (A Thanksgiving Week Tribute to Those I Love)
Today’s charm is dedicated to my soul-mate, my husband Andy:
I’ve naively wondered why my husband is a Pisces when he’d rather be eating meat than fish; furthermore, water, whether it be for swimming or showering, has to be precisely a certain temperature before he’ll even test it with his little toe. Since he didn’t come with a manual when we got married, I’ve learned how to combine my sign (Taurus) with his somewhat by trial and error, the school of hard knocks, and lots of love (which has always been reciprocated equally.) Today I researched Pisces for this post and had one of those “ah ha” moments.
Traditional Pisces traits are:
Imaginative and sensitive
Compassionate and kind
Selfless and unworldly
Intuitive and sympathetic
On the dark side…
Escapist and idealistic
Secretive and vague
Weak-willed and easily led
While I won’t reveal which of these traits jumps off the page at me most, I will say that my husband is one of the kindest, gentlest, and most compassionate creatures inhabiting my earth.
(If you are curious to read more about Pisces, please click here.)
A Design a Day – Day 68 (A Thanksgiving Week Tribute to Those I Love)
Today’s charm is dedicated to my sister, Marta:
My sister has traveled the world, seems to survive any difficult situation she encounters, has an uncanny knack for picking up not only the customs but the specific accents of different regions, and is fluent in three languages. Some people say we look like twins; others, that they can’t tell that we’re even sisters. The way I see it, she is a uniquely beautiful, intelligent and very special person.
A Design a Day – Day 53
Here is today’s design…finished just under the wire with 4 minutes to spare! (Ok, so by the time I’m posting this it is 12:02 a.m.)
The idea to design a pendant around a fruit came to me as I was watching Chopped, a cooking competition show on TV tonight. I modeled my pomegranate pendant after a Fabergé ladybug pendant I own. Like my ladybug pendant, this pendant would be enameled. It would also have cabochon garnets, bead-set diamonds and would be trimmed with 18K yellow gold.
Tomorrow’s design-a-day will feature a marquise diamond, gold and citrine earring rendering along with the actual fabricated earrings…be sure to come back then!