Green Tiger by: Dwyn Tomlinson
Tyger, tyger - glowing green, slinking through the forest unseen. What immortal hand or eye, dare paint gilders paste on thee?
Well - me, that's who. I love these stone pendants, and I have a large number of them - pretty much every one ever made in Lapis of a dragon, I think. But it kind of bothers me that you often can't really see the carving and the detail unless you do some squinting and holding it just right in the light and looking at an angle.
So I decided to add my own touches and make the imagery more visible. You could do this with any of the carved stone pendants!
I started with some black alcohol ink, and did a wash over it to show the detail in the cracks and crevices. It dried very subtle, but is just enough to make the relief more visible. Then I used some gilders paste, and swiped it across the raised areas, to bring them forward. I used a gold colour, because it went well with the green, and that then drove the colour of the metal beads and findings that I used.
I did not spray this with a fixative. The alcohol ink will fade if left in the sunlight, but as I wasn't really intending to store it in the garden, it seemed reasonable to leave it.
Insert the bail into the hole at the top of the pendant, and squeeze shut. Cut yourself a piece of softflex, and thread the bail on, and then work the left and the right side. This way, you can tweak the length to get it just right, (this is finished length 19 inches), and if you mess up the pattern, you can just make the other side match.
Start with a daisy spacer on either side of the bail, and then do 3 of the Czech firepolish donuts, each with a daisy spacer between. Then add the bicone, and 3 more donuts (with daisy spacers). Repeat the bicone, and the donuts, and then switch to stardust beads between each set of 3 donuts. Add a crimp and the clasp and secure one side. Then add a crimp and a jump ring on the other side. Cover the crimps with crimp covers, add a few more jump rings to make a short chain extender, and wire a donut as a drop for the end of the chain as a nice little accent.
Bonus - there is enough beads left over to make a bracelet, and even some earrings if you wanted. Alternate beads and daisy spacers, and pull a clasp out of your stash to finish it!
Components
Go to our components list for this project and to buy what you need!Need some help with some of the techniques? Check our tips page.
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