South Sea Pearls

More necklaces! Both feature South Sea Pearl enhancers. I added a small Australian boulder opal cab with predominantly blue and green flashes of color to the silver baroque pearl. The pendant is shown on a faceted kyanite bead necklace. The pale yellow drop pearl is paired with a greenish yellow African sapphire and hangs from faceted peridot beads.

Both necklaces are handstrung with my own 18k toggle clasps.  

green

I would be the first to admit that green is one of my favorite colors and green stones are no exception. The green bands within this emerald cut quartz is created by the presence of Epidote, a mineral. The lighter green beads are very lively chrysoberyl, some with cat's eyes, and the bright green are peridot which also happens to be the birthstone for August.

  

The setting and spacers are oxidzed sterling silver. Both strands of beads have been handstrung and knotted to lay close together. This necklace is part of a small collection I am making for Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming.

blue and gray

Three pairs of earrings are part of a small collection that I am currently making. Silvery gray-blue tahitian pearls with blue spinel and quartz drops. Tahitian pearls are natural color and this is my favorite shade. The long drop quartz are from Brazil. I love the elongated shape and cut. The violet blue shade of the spinel is unusual and very pretty. All jewelry is 18k. 

I have a new jewelry stamp of my name FAVRE, seen here on the reverse of the quartz drop earrings.

4th of July

Happy Birthday USA.

Color - found in the NYC subway

This subway mosaic is circa 1917. Mosaics like this are found in all of the older subway stations in a huge variety of color combinations. They were designed and created as efficient attractive and easy to maintain sinage. This one caught my eye; I love this color combination.

Later, I bought these! Tourmalines for earrings.

Inspiration

Notable New Yorker cartoonist Gahan Wilson gave a memorable talk that I attended when I was in art school. He showed large lecture hall sized slides of his now famous cartoons and clever captions. While I can only recall a few of the images, I never forgot his reply to a question about inspiration. He said "I paint what I see."