EU conference day three....

The final day (with an hour less sleep due to the clock change!!!) dawns bright and sunny again.  Its time for the Swarovski crystal workshop with Roswitha Schwarz. Roswitha has some beautiful samples of her new techniques developed in collaboration with Swarovski (would had never heard of metal clay! tsk,imagine that!!!). Apparently they cut "real" gemstones too (and believe me the quality and depth of colour is fab) and have some jewel set chain (again, I have seen this with base metals and synthetics, but never sterling and semi precious) and pre set stones. I am so excited as the results look stunning. I am also thrilled by Roswitha's designs - her style is very clean and contemporary yet beautiful and shows the stones to maximum benefit.

My photos don't do them justice. Suffice to say the stones are easy to work with. The tiny stones in the preset bezels give a wonderful delicate finish and the jewel chain gives a completely new look. We used photopolymer moulds to create the design. I have used the yellow photopolymer plates before but they are quite thin, these were Imagepacs and about 2.5mm thick red ones supplied as a gel sachet. Needless to say I will have to buy some to experiment with!

I am so excited about these stones and can't wait to buy some! hopefully we will hear more about them here: http://www.rosart.de/

EU conference day one masterclass part 2

First a few more pictures from this afternoon.

dragonfly with mother of pearl wings

filigree syringe pendant

filigree ring

This evening, a brief opening speech by Herwig Schwarz, and then Mr. Kawai (head of Aida's overseas division). He brought a tear to our eyes and his own as he thanked the world for helping in Japan (119 different countries offered aid) and said that knowing they were not alone was a great comfort. There were hints of what they are working on (mokume gane was mentioned) and the unfortunate news that a substantial price rise is coming to metal clay (please don't buy up all the stock before I get home!!!). Apparently they could sell the silver they reclaim for more profit than they make from metal clay!
And finally (with champagne) a presentation from Swarovski. We learned about the history of the company (started in Czechslovakia not Austria!) and their current developments. They cut semi-precious gems as well as crystal and zirconia and have been working on combining their products. They have developed new cuts- I love the fan cut. http://www.swarovski-gems.com/#/fan-cut
We also had some sneak previews of trend forecasts for 2012 (only now being revealed in Basel, and not offially launched for awhile.) Here are this years forecasts: http://www.swarovski-gems.com/#/trend-research-1 (This post will get rather long if I go into next years, but if you want to know, email me, or check back at their sie soon- you get pictures that way!).