I already had in mind to do earrings at some point in this class. I've always like jewelry making and I thought I would save that idea for the laser cutter assignment. I picked colors of acrylic in a palette that I enjoy a lot (blues and organges/yellows)
I didn't know exactly what sorts of earrings I wanted to make so I started researching references:
I was looking for simple shapes that looked a little retro so I based my designs on that. I actually didn't sketch these as I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted and it seemed straightforward to me.
As always I did a test run and played around with cutting, shaping and bending the material in order to get to know the nature of it. Because my acrylic was transparent I wanted to test how the colors overlapped and the play of light through them. After playing with it for a while I decided no to put anything on top of the dark blue acrylic because it is so dark that the colors became muddy. So I adjusted some of my designs based on this experiment.
I'm pretty happy with my final result. I even etched my face on a pair of earrings based on photos of myself. I also made two other pairs with designs etched in them which I enjoyed immensely. I only regret that I didn't figure out how to attach the earring backs to the acrylic securely. I bought acrylic glue for this but it only seems to work when you glue acrylic to acrylic and nothing else.
Other than that the laser cutter seems almost magical with the ease that it does everything and I know understand how easy it is to fall in love with it and forget you can actually make things in other ways.
