Making the pearl Tree Egg

The Pearl Tree Egg is totally fabricated, no castings at all. More and more I am finding that I prefer to fabricate items rather than wax carve and casting them. Sometimes there is just no way to avoid casting a piece, but that is fine too. During the making of this egg I kept knocking (accidentally) the enameled surface chipping pieces off, which required a couple of repair firings.

The Pearl Tree Egg

Created in early 2005

This egg is made of Sterling silver, red enamel and freshwater pearls. The reason for the orange color is because the base metal is Sterling Silver, the copper in the silver mixes with the enamel causing the discoloration. The decorative pearl tree rests on a stand inside the egg.

To see more visit my website at: www.stevensobjects.com

Enameling the Blue Crown Egg

After reading about how Faberge would mix enamels to create new colors and effects I decided to see what I could do with what I had at hand. The mixing of the light blue and orchid enamels led to an appealing outcome. No color overpowers the other. It gives a hint of both colors in a pleasant way.

Making the Blue Crown Egg

When I made this egg I tried using low density plastic to make the stem, cutting and casting it. I wasn't at all impressed with the way it cast. It had too much porosity and bad areas on it, needless to say I won't use plastic in place of wax any more. The banding was soldered to the shells then it was enameled. It was a unique way to make the piece, but cleanup was difficult. As far as the base goes I didn't really know how to finish it. I finally started playing with ideas and ended up using the petal like design. It works nicely.

The Blue Crown Egg

The Blue Crown egg is officially the first complete egg that I created. Completed late 2004, it is spun silver, cast, fabricated and enameled.
The egg is 4 1/4" tall by 1 3/4"wide. There is a Sapphire cabochon mounted in the band. The surprise inside is a 2" long silver fabricated scepter brooch with an amethyst bullet in the top and a Sapphire cabochon in the bottom.

Decorating the surface of an egg

Each egg I etch is done by hand, one nick at a time. I have tried several etching tools in the past. I finally settled on high-speed burs to cut my silver surfaces. I did use a high-speed knife edge bur once, but I spun it too fast and on the second cut it broke. It takes me about an hour or so to etch (cut) a one shell. Once the design is cut into the surface I scrub it with a glass fiber type brush to remove any loose debri and thoroughly clean it prior to the enameling it.

The Etching process

The etching process is called guilloche. A rose machine is used to make the design on the surface of the egg. I couldn't afford a rose machine, so I built my own. I still haven't figured out all of its capabilities yet, because I pretty much started using one or two techniques as soon as I built it. On paper I have calculated well over 1000 design variation capabilities. Will I have time to explore them all?