Earrings Everyday: structure

Friday, April 17, 2015

We're All Ears :: April Reveal

Wasn't this the most fascinating architectural wonders? I hope that one day I get to travel to Spain to view the The City of Arts and Sciences complex. Just the buildings alone would be awe-inspiring, must less to see what is housed in these wonders! My first instinct was to give you one structure for the inspiration. But I really had a hard time choosing! So I gave them all to you!

The one that I was most drawn to is the Hemispheric. This structure looks like a glowing eyeball with the retractable lid and the reflecting pool.

I knew right away that I wanted to play with that shape. And what better way than to use a herringbone wire wrap. I tried using multiple colors of wire so it sort of had a peacock feather effect, but I only had 20 gauge wire, and it became too thick to work with (I needed to use something like 24 gauge). So I scaled it back and just used one color, this peridot green that brought out the color in these mystery beads. I have no idea what they are. They are sort of a milky white with tiny facets all over and peeking through the stone are these translucent dots of green. [If you know what it is, please give a shout out in the comments!]

I simply added a little green briolette to the bottom and finished with gold filled ear wires. I could see making them in all sorts of colors, and I found a lot of beads of similar size that I might test that out that idea.

The second pair of earrings I managed to make are vastly different. I was inspired by the Umbracle gateway with the steel wire arches and the El Museo de les Ciències Príncipe Felipe that was built to resemble a whale skeleton. Even the L'Oceanogràfic has this same arched whale shape!

I sketched out a design for wishbone shaped pieces of dark annealed steel wire. I simply wrapped the 18 gauge wire to make a sort of spring and then flattened the ends to finish them. For the ear wires, I used a 19 gauge wire to mimic the shape as if it were the spine of the beast.

They are super light weight and an interesting shape. I might experiment with adding more bone shapes, or beads in between. A larger one would make a really cool pendant. Maybe these miniature whale wish bones (is that an oxymoron?) will bring me three times the luck!