Bright Spirit Necklace: Design and Fabrication

Jill Leventon

Sandra started by showing a video about how she made her Bright Spirit necklace, then talked about it and answered questions.

The original intention had been to make a medallion of a black dahlia, but this changed to a pink and orange one as she did the design.

The first stage is a rough (in this case, very rough) sketch of the idea which is then drawn and refined on the computer (in Illustrator). After printing it out, it is coloured in using coloured pencils.

Front of necklace

Sandra uses fine silver sheet. After cutting the frames for the angel wings on the front, they are fused onto sheet silver using Cupric Acetate mixed with Klyr Fire. This is torch fired from below until the solution turns to silver and there is no gap between the top piece and the sheet. The sheet is then cut out round the frame. As it was important for Sandra that the back looked good, she then soldered slightly simplified frames to the back using medium solder. The frames had been prepared with the necessary attachments for the finished piece.