Sterling Silver and Copper Labradorite Eye
After months of creating pieces, I had finally sold enough to give me the courage to purchase sterling silver. I really liked how the copper and silver-plated eye turned out, so I wanted to make an eye that was mainly silver with copper accents instead.
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This eye is very similar to the other two eyes I have process pages for, though it's fun to show the process pictures!
I built the frame of this one out of copper wire to save on cost. The coil around the labradorite is sterling silver with a copper wire between those coils.
It's interesting how the silver base wires are so bright that the copper accents aren't as noticeable as compared to when it's done in the reverse, with the copper base wire with silver accents.
The coil I used to secure this labradorite was a sterling silver weaving wire and copper weaving wire. I anchored that down using silver wire attached to the frame.
Next, I weave the inner eyelid area. For the base wires, I used three copper wires and two silver wires alternating them in the hopes that you would be able to see the copper accents after weaving.
But again, since the silver is so bright, it's hard to see the copper unless looking closely at it.
I then weaved the lower eyelash with sterling base wires and copper wires for the eyelashes.
Given the shape of the labradorite and how I anchored my eyelashes, there was no gap that I needed to fill with wire (like the Griffin and Silver Plated eyes).
On this step I weaved the upper eyelash in the exact same pattern that I weaved the lower eyelash.
The one exception being that I added an additional base wire to make it slightly larger than the lower eyelash.
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The gap underneath the lower and upper eyelashes needed to be filled to avoid seeing the frame when looking from the edges.
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To cover the gaps, I weaved three sterling silver base wires with sterling silver weaving wire and used those on both the upper and lower gaps. After that I anchored them to the frame.
To finish it off, I bent the bail over using a pencil which allows me to get a clean, rounded finish.
I anchored that to the frame in the back to secure it in place and BOOM, you've got an eye.