All cast. Now time to clean up and assemble.

Let the stress begin.

Or rather let the stress boil over. The en of the semester is near, almost too close for comfort. What does that mean for me?
For me that means rushing to finish projects. Although on the plus side I did get all of my earrings sprued together yesterday and we are going to cast those tonight. So that's a few less things to worry about then.

Hurray! Waxes for earrings!!

Into the tea bath we go!
I'm going to let it sit overnight and pull it out in the morning before I go to work.

My spoonflower order came in today. :D
Now to tea dye.

Working on production pieces. I have to remake these with thicker metal so I can rubber mold and cast a ton of these. If you haven't guessed its mistletoe. Perfect for the holidays.

Working on illustrator stuff for digital methods. Man was this aspect a pain but it looks really nice all put together with the rest of it. Now just to order my fabric piece...

I also finished cleaning up my single leaf necklaces. Nothing special, but they are simple and pretty.

Working on some leaves and things for production pieces. So far so good.

I know I have been slacking with the blog posts lately, but we had some excitement in the studio today that should be shared. We have a visiting artist! Professor Hara came from Japan to teach us how to do traditional Japanese inlay. I wasn't able to participate in the workshop itself but I may learn a thing or two by just observing.

This wasn't what I was supposed to be working on?

Okay so I did an extra thing for myself. In my defense I was working on the bracelet at the same time. This is an honestly dorky thing as it comes from an incredibly anime/manga series called Claymore. Each person gets their own symbol and this one happens to be my favorite. Actually after posting it on tumblr people have now been asking where they can buy them, so maybe when I have some more time I can make some of the other symbols, but who knows. We'll see how things go.

Oh yeah. Did I mention I found this growing just outside of the studio?
It's bittersweet nightshade. This stuff is toxic, but it won't kill you. Probably just make you seriously ill. But anyway Those berries up at the top on the bittersweet, unlike the deadly that turn black, will eventually turn bright red as they mature.
Since I took this picture though maintenance cut the plant down, so I can't even show you what the berries would look like which is disappointing.

The photo is sideways, but these were my experiments with my leaves.
As much as I love the color on the heat patina, I can't get it to stay when I seal it. It's kind of a bummer, but unless I can find a lacquer that won't take that away I'm just going to have to deal.

Bracelet Progress

So here are the progress shots of the bracelet for Illiana's set.
Since I took these shots the solder has been cleaned off of it and the links that go around the back have been soldered on. So the basic form of it is pretty much done. It needs one jump ring, one more vine and a clasp, then just the leaves and berries and it will be done. That's honestly not a whole ton of work left to do. Once this is done I can start assembling the Tiara (the main part of the project and I'm doing that last. It's like I have a death wish or something) and I can focus on working on the other stuff.

The Goddess

I think it is about time that I introduce you to the next character I have been working on: The Goddess.
The Goddess is a woman of many names as she likes to make herself present in many people by gracing them with accelerated talents. She is one of three sister Goddesses, but we won't get too much into that because it doesn't really play into the design of her crown.
The Goddess Tiara is made to look more like a circlet. It encircles the head with hammered silver centering itself on the forehead with a pair of wings wrapping themselves around an Amethyst cabochon. It's a very simple design overall which makes sense for the character. She is reserved and the main voice of justice and reason within her world. She doesn't need elaborate things to live, unlike some of the others.
While the crown belongs to the Goddess it isn't actually worn by her. Sounds like a contradiction right? What I mean is she did once wear it, but she decided that it would stand as a relic that is to be worn, along with the matching amulet, by her human counterpart. The counterpart is basically a girl (It's very rare that a man be gifted by the Goddess) who has been graced so much that she is practically the human embodiment of the Goddess herself.

I have been slacking in my duties here. I suppose it's time for an update. Okay so, having realized how much time I actually had left this summer I eliminated a project. Instead the two tiaras I am doing are going to have a smaller piece to go with them. Illiana is getting a bracelet and the goddess (who I just remembered you haven't met yet) is getting an amulet. I've already started on the bracelet and intend to hopefully finish that today or perhaps tomorrow. And I will try to get photos of that for you. I will also have to do the progress shots for the tiara thus far as well as the post about who the goddess is and what her tiara will look like.
So much work to do. So little time.

Illiana

The first tiara I will be dealing with is the one that graces the head of Illiana the Witch Queen.
Illiana is by far one of my favorite villainous characters. In her story (or rather a short collection of screenplay scripts) she is a very powerful enchantress. She is vain, ruthless, power hungry as well as incredibly dangerous. So in her tiara are small beads of blue goldstone.
In crystal magic goldstone is believed to enhance traits of vanity, as well as power. While no stone is inherently "evil" it does enhance traits that can be destructive which makes this stone perfect for her tiara.
Illiana's power is thought to be the oldest living source of magic among the people which makes her a feared being. However, what makes her so interesting to me and so dangerous to her people, is her ability to shift her shape. Once she sees a person she is able to replicate just about everything about them. This ability allows her to give you a choice to decide which person is real and which is actually the witch queen. If the answer chosen is wrong there are very deadly consequences.
This game she plays is very much like certain plant species such as nightshade. Nightshade has several plants that are edible, for example potatoes and tomato, but there are several that are poisonous and one that, if consumed, will kill you. That one in particular is atropa belladonna, or rather, deadly nightshade. While researching that it became pretty obvious to me that this had to work itself into her crow, and it did. Its leaves create the base and point of the crown while the goldstone presents itself as the poisonous berries, thus creating one vicious crown fit for our villain.

My projects for the summer are tiaras which in itself is an incredibly interesting topic. However seeing as I'm somewhat of an amateur novelist I thought it would be fun to bring to life some of the characters I have created in these projects.
Each crown both reflects the personality of the character who is meant to wear it as well as reflect it' description in it's respective story.

Well summer classes have started and I have done exactly what I didn't want to do, but apparently do best. I procrastinated. I have a design and all, it's just fighting with models. Currently the models of the project are winning, but I'll figure it out eventually.

The Green Man

For our first project we are looking at clasps as a focal point. I decided to focus on this guy for this first project.

 This is The Green man. He is the Celtic God of the woods. So normally he is portrayed as just a face of leaves. Though he is described as having horns or antlers, it is hard to find a photo of him with them. This depiction seems to be the most popular one.

Semester Theme

We have had to pick a theme to use for the semester and as usual I am was very behind. While I did pick a theme it seems to be evolving slightly as I go. It is still under the same basic concept though so I think it will be alright. I ultimately settled on going with a theme of Celtic druidism and other paganistic religions in that area.

I suppose introductions are in order.

I am going to start off telling you a little bit about myself before I just dive in and start talking about work and projects. For those of you who don't know, my name is Megan, M.A. Connell is actually a pen name that I use. I am a sophomore jewelry design student at Buffalo State. As well as being a jewelry design student I also dabble in writing and a number of other crafts, but I have other blogs for that. You probably don't want to see those though. If I let you see those you would honestly think I was crazy.

This blog will mostly be school projects. Mainly the jewelry ones, but it's possible that there may be a few non-jewelry things that slip through.