Hey BMAG friends!
It’s Cynthia Topp here again, and I’m going to be teaching both Level 1 and Level 2 workshops on Argentium®! We’ve changed the dates, so the next Level 1 class is now on June 12th, followed by the Level 2 class on June 26th.
You might have heard of the silver alloy called Argentium®, but why would you want to learn to work with it if you normally work with sterling? I think of it as the “magic silver,” and it has some pretty amazing properties. It doesn’t tarnish! It doesn’t firescale! It fuses to itself (like gold) so you can easily do certain techniques like granulation and filigree work. And because you don’t use solder, you’ll never clean up a blob of solder again!
Just to whet your appetite for Argentium®, here are a few of my recent pieces.
For the upcoming Level 1 class, you’ll be learning how to make granules (little balls) and lots of interesting shapes like heart, teardrops, paisleys, stars, etc., out of Argentium® wire, then fuse them onto a backplate to make a pendant or earrings. I’ll also demonstrate some of the pitfalls of Argentium®, so that you know what NOT to do.
Here are some samples of the kind of project you can create in the workshop.
And here are a few of the student projects from recent Level 1 classes.
In Level 2, we’ll go on to create filigrees that don’t have a back plate and also work on adding bezels.
Come join me on Sunday, June 12th from 10am – 5pm for Level 1! Register here: https://bmag-wa.org/courses/.
Looking forward to meeting you! Cynthia