Silver is a beautiful metal loved by many people around the world. Silver jewellery is highly available in the marketplace because its shiny nature is suitable for any style, its durable material and affordable prices. You can use silver in different kinds of pendants such as earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings etc. Jewellery made with Sterling silver is growing as one of the most popular types of accessories in the fashion industry. Sterling is made with approximate 92% of pure silver and other metals so that is can be tangible and useable. You can buy silver jewellery at a very reasonable price with many diverse designs. There are now many places that sell handmade lost-wax pendant online, and people often focus on handmade silver jewellery because they can put their innovative ideas in it.
Lost wax casting, also known as “Investment casting”, is a casting method that has been used for thousands of years and was initially used for duplicate metal sculpture, which is often silver, gold or bronze. As the casting process became standardised, the method was able to be used for small parts and jewellery, up until this day.
Our Monday, we had a full class at Laneway Learning Central (Melbourne CBD) for “Silver pendant: Casting from Nature”, and it was a blast. The class is taught by Jenny, a gift shop owner that has been learning to make her own special pieces of jewellery using different types of materials, from paper to metal. She also has qualifications and a passion for interior design, merchandising and origami. She also hosts many craft-related, DIY classes at Laneway Learning Melbourne.
Held over two weeks, the class starts off with the fundamental processes of lost-wax – how to model the wax as in suitable ways for our pieces. Everyone in the class was very motivated and excited about working with these materials, some students even brought along their own dried plants and gum nut. The wax that we used was in between a hard and soft wax. The wax was shapeable with the warmth of our hands, so it can be used as adhesive to stick objects together and to easily shape the loops. The wax can be purchased through local Melbourne artist supplies stores. Jenny has also mentioned that the thickness of the object must be between 0.3mm to 0.5mm in order to have a perfect result.
By the end of the class, everyone finished one or more pieces that were bagged safely and ready to send over to a jewellery company for transformation.
You can book for silver pendants here or silver ring making here.
Author
Skylar Xu is a Media student at RMIT, she is also learning fashion design as her elective. She is currently at her last semester of University. During her spare time she loves to watch films and explore the city.
This article was written and produced as part of the CREATE Media Arts Internship Program.
Laneway Learning has partnered with The Mentorship to deliver this exciting new program to support young people aspiring to work within the creative media and arts sectors.