The Final Ring

It’s finals week and today is the final critique for my metals/jewelry class. The project was to create a ring that was our choice and I’d had a design in my head since the first project. Actually, I think I’d had the design for much longer, but I knew what I wanted to do so getting started was easy.

If you remember my first ring, it was a granulated band with sections cut out to expose the finger of the wearer. I really liked the results so I continued that idea with this piece. Although I’m not a huge fan of pearls, I wanted to set one in this design and have the sides cut out to expose the curves of the pearl. Thanks to Sarah, I had two gorgeous black pearls she’d picked up for me at the SNAG conference in March. I granulated the walls of the setting with my hammered granules for a textured effect. I’m pretty happy with the results.

I was originally going to put the setting right on top of the band, but decided it would look better setting up off the band. Here’s another shot:

You can really see the pearl and the wearer’s finger with the setting lifted. The ring is very wearable and the pearl is somewhat protected with the granulated walls.