Cicada Ring Completed!

The flurries are drifting down like frozen fireflies from street lamps and the Cicada Ring is finished! Only after much panic and buffing (the patina turned out to be foul and needed to be sanded off...) I managed to get out of the studio in time for supper. Huzzah! Originally I had planned to make the ring a bright chartreuse, but the patina just refused to oxidize correctly leaving me with a weird spotty aqua surface that just wouldn't do. So I sanded it off and tried an antique black finish that was just as bad if not worse. (Nickle is far more finicky than I had bargained for.) I ended up eliminating the patina all together and opting for a plain, clean shiny surface over some mottled mess. The wings are cold forged with a hammered finish. The legs are sterling silver and have a similar treatment to the wings. Unfortunately, photographing a tiny object is difficult--so you loose the surface embellishment. I used an acid bath to etch a detailed scaly relief on the cicada's body that gets lost in the photographs.

I'm considering adding rhinestone eyes after I turn in the project. (No found objects were allowed.) I want it to be an insect Grace Kelly would wear! I'm not looking forward to critique tomorrow--I have it with my grouchy tool-y metals professor. He hated the design from the get go...he went as far as to "edit" my drawings with a sharpie. I'm a big girl and have no issue with constructive criticism but marring someones drawing with black marker without permission is Studio Taboo!

The parameters for the assignment were to create a character ring designed for someone specific. (It could be yourself or a fictitious character.) He was looking over my design said matter of factly, "I'd never wear that thing..." And I thought, Erm--I would hope not as you're not a twenty-one-year-old woman. (I hope he turns into a toad!) But I'm not going to let his jackassery ruin it! I've got a killer momentum going! I'm gleefully crossing off tasks with red ink--I'm off to my To Do List!

Blissings!~*