Swimming Along - A Dolphin's Tale

I spent about a week working on my latest piece. The design was inspired by a comment someone left on a picture I posted about my recent bird necklaces. I made the first bird using yellow tourmalines and orange fire opals to match the colors of the western tanagers that migrate through my area each Spring.




The second bird I made I colored after the western bluebird, a favorite of mine! I liked this one so much that I decided to keep it for myself.



This was the one that reminded someone of a dolphin, and I thought with a little tweaking I could make one. I did some sketches, but didn't actually start making it until the day the reporter from The Bannock Alternative paper came to my house to interview me for a feature in this month's issue.



I spent the next several days wrapping gemstones onto the sterling frame to color the dolphin.



I used tiny faceted iolite and aquamarine beads, along with some of the tiny faceted Thai silver beads from my stash, and a flashing blue labradorite briolette for the dolphin's nose.



The gemstone beads are only about 2mm in size, so it took quite a few beads, and numerous feet of hair-thin fine silver wire to fill the frame.



Then I constructed a gemstone chain for it to hang from. I used larger faceted aquamarines, with iolite, keishi pearls and labratorites for flourishes on the chain, and added a length of cable chain on the end so the length would be adjustable.



This necklace is one of the pieces I am making for the upcoming Ketchum Arts Festival. I will not be adding any new pieces to my Etsy shop until after the festival which runs July 8-10, however, you can take advantage of the Moving Sale going on in my shop the whole month of June, as I prepare to move to a new place. It is an especially exciting move as I will finally have a studio of my own! I will begin teaching classes in my new studio starting mid-July. I will post pictures and a class schedule in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

And now back to packing. See you all again soon!
all the best,
~Pippi