Final Pieces:

Silver and 24 carat gold plated.

The rings are stackable to create your own mini cave!

Rearrange the layers to suit yourself.

The earrings are solid silver with 24 carat gold plating and are oxidised on the back layer.

Test Pieces For Professional Experience Project:

Excuse the sprews on some of them, I haven't cleaned them up yet! 

I love animals with tiny feet

LOOK

Look What I've Done:

During our first, or maybe second, week of Uni the First, Second and Third years of BA Jewellery And Silversmithing collaborated to create Christmas presents! A little early you might think? Well, so did I. But it was fun anyway. The presents we made were to be gifted to other BA students as part of an exchange at Christmas. We were all to make a present in a group (the presents were all meant to be wearable and reflect a similar theme to th
e rest of your group) we then decorated boxes for them to hang from the School Of Jewellery Christmas tree once it's erected.

My group's theme was 'All That Glitters Is Not Gold' (I kind of manipulated it this way, you'll find out why later!). And this is what I made:

It's a ring (the shank made from a ring bound sketchbook). The 'flowery' bit is from felt, I added a metallic paint to the outside and inner edges, which dried with a metal/plastic feel. I also painted some cocktail sticks which I added to the inside and created a webby mess with UHU glue! Sounds crappy but I loved it!
It's a shame that I have to give it away because whoever gets it probably won't appreciate it as much as I do so they'll just chuck it in the bin!

Oh Land - Rainbow

I've definitely got a bit of a thing for all things sparkly at the moment! I've loved GOLD for a while now, but recently anything with a shine to it has caught my fancy!
This song's lovely, but the glitter in the video most certainly makes it better.

Welcome to the project of FUN...du du du du du

I neeeeeeeeeeeed something to do next week while I'm back in Birmingham for work, so I'm giving myself a fun drawing project (well, two):

Project 1:
To do some cute little stickmen drawings. I love drawing stick men, I love incorporating text in my work...so I'm going to combine to two! I think I'm going to call it something like 'Stickmen Doing Stuff, With Words'. It'll literally be that. A drawing of some stickmen doing something, with a caption to match their action. What fun!

Project 2:
I've started to think about what I want to use as inspiration for my next project at uni. After a recent trip to the coast I found myself interested in the formations of barnacles. I like how these forms are built up from lots of one similar shape. The result being something almost quite grotesque to look at, yet simultaneously intriguing.

I'm going to draw from the photos I took on the beach, and maybe try to create my o

wn similar formations.

I'm reminded of these rings by Maud Traon when I think about the shapes I'd like to make.

www.maudtraon.net

EXCITING TIMES

In a coconut shell...

Forgive me my blogging sins. I've not been on for a while now. It's due to technical issues, but now I'm here, that's what counts right?Anyway, here's some of what I've been doing while I've been away:
My final project for my first year was a 'live' one. We worked with briefs set by external companies/clients as opposed to ones set by our tutors. It submersed us into the world of professional practise for the first time. Our deadlines were short and we had a lot to do for each one. One of the companies was the jewellery brand Watch This Space. They're pretty established and know exactly what their clients want. The people that usually buy from them are what I'd describe as the middle aged woman who wears full purple with a contrasting velvet scarf (probably in lime green) and is adorned in vulgar, bulbous stones of little value. As you've probably guessed I don't really like the company's style but I had a grade to attain from this so I persevered. All of the work that we had to present for this project had to be generated on Corel Draw. It was pretty easy and I got quite good and quick at doing it, but I didn't enjoy having to be creative on a computer.

One of the other projects was to create a piece for the Birmingham Children's Hospital to celebrate their 15oth anniversary and to help them to raise money. I really enjoyed this project as it was to design something simple and commercial. All of the projects were treated as competitions. People from the hospital looked through everyone's designs and picked 5 people who's designs they wanted to see made. From those they'd pick one to put into production. I got through to the final five with this design:

It's made in solid sliver and would have retailed at about £30 a piece for the brooch (the one pictured) and £20 for the pendant. I didn't win. Apparently, according to my tutor, I came a disturbingly close 2nd. The judges had to really nit pick between mine and the winners and decided that mine could be viewed as sexist because it depicts a FEmale nurse!! HOW ANNOYING!!!! If I'd had a man they'd have said it was a paedophile. And anyway, I never said it was a woman, it's just a person in a nurse's uniform.

The other project was to design part of a costume for a theatre group called Kindle. They were producing a play called The Furies which is sort of a modern take on the Greek myth of Clytemnestra. We were to pick a character and design/make part of their costume. We were encouraged to capture part of the character in our design.

I chose Agamemnon as mine. He was associated with brutality and power but also had an aged and timeless effect about him, and there was a connection to birds too. Basically, this is what I made:

It's made from burnt/melted leatherette and synthetic feathers. I hand stitched pieces of the leatherette together to give a skull-like appearance on the white parts. The girl I made it for seemed to love it but, yet again, I did not win.

Look what I made...and am scoffing pretty much all to myself...

Sundried tomato and red onion!

What to do....

Well, I'm on my Easter break at the moment. The first week's pretty much been and gone and I've done very little with it. It's been nice to have a break though. I've caught up with friends and had a nice slob! But now my creative mind needs some form of stimulus. I've had a few ideas of things to do with my limited free time. I've already said that I'd do some public art with my cork people, so that's one thing. Also, whilst in Camden the other day I saw some mirrors with interesting vintage photo collages around their frames. I thought I might have a go at making something like this myself. I thought I'd buy a framed mirror and create my own collage on the frame using cut outs of anything I like, then sealing the design with glue/varnish. It should work. Well, I don't see how it wouldn't!

Hands are AMAZING

Shadow Puppets

Puppets

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yedD4JsZyT0&feature=relatedHow cute is this?!

Public Art..

I've been thinking. Recently a classmate presented a seminar on Graffiti, and since then I've had a small desire to do some myself. I don't like the idea of running out, under cover of darkness wearing a hoodie and blasting the side of a piece of private property with some spray paint, but I do like the idea of leaving something highly inoffensive, harmless and easily removable in public, for all to see. So what would I do? Well, remember my little cork men of many moons ago? I think I shall be creating a little cork army and releasing them into the wild (either Birmingham or Leicester) and placing them in positions suited to their setting. I'm excited, more excited than I have been during my latest project! Finally, something enjoyable!

Less of the Jibber Jabber

Here's my fanal piece. It's a Collar Brooch but could be warn anywhere on the chest really.

Frills, Thrills but no Automobiles

So I had to think of alternative connections did I?
I had to make my piece bigger did I?
FINE!

Ha, no, I didn't mind at all. In fact, I much prefer the work that I produced after the critique to the work that I did before it.

I kept the outside component how it was before, but just changed the inside bits from flat sheets to frilly, puffy, protruding things!

I then started to think about other materials that I could add into the piece. A friend was using some latex and I liked the effects she was getting from it, so I gave it a go and incorporated it into my own work in my own way.

I made sheet pieces of dyed latex which I wedged in between the fabric and the metal before riveting them all together.
I quite liked these pieces. It was nice to add a contemporary and intriguing material into my work. But I still had more experiments to do.
I tried dipping the ends of the ruffs into wax. This meant that the fabric was stiffened into a set position, and, despite looking soft and flexible, the fabric would be hard and solid. I then combined the wax with acrylic paint to add some colour.

My next thought was if the latex would work in the same way and the acrylic paint. I saw no reason why it wouldn't, and thought it might have a nicer texture than the paint.



Now, the problem with the latex was that, even though I mixed a dye into it before applying it to the fabric, the natural pigment of the latex seemed to grow through the thinner parts of the latex over time, producing this vomit-like colour. Who wouldn't wan't to wear that? YUMMY!


I was also trying to think of alternative connections. Trying, and failing.
I sort of overcame the pigmentation problem though. I just added more dye!

B-B-B-Bad to the Blogging B-B-B-Bone

I haven't blogged in AGES, I know. But, I have a valid reason. I've been working so hard! But at least that means I have lots to share now that I'm playing the role of the Prodigal Blogger.

So...brace yourselves!

Where did I leave you then? Ahh, I was struggling for a direction for my Batch Production project wasn't I. Well, I sorted myself out, somehow. I went for the pencil shavings, which lead me onto frills, frills and more frills. I took the pencil shaving drawings and simplified them, from these drawings I selected one, which I cut out and used as a 'component', a form that I would repeat multiple times to create a final piece of some sort. To start with I tried to mimic the form of a ruff or a frill. I was happy with the effect that this had with my paper models. To make these I curled the component into a cone shape and glued them together in rows.

My production methods for these models brought the realisation that this form perhaps wasn't the best for a Batch Production module seeing as, to reproduce this effect, each piece would have to be soldered into place. So I had to think of another way to build my component into a piece... Alongside the project we were also being taught some useful batch production methods. My favourite of these methods was 'Lost Wax Casting' which involves producing a wax master which then gets set into a mould of plaster, burnt out and then replaced with the molten metal of choice. What was extra lovely about this demo was that we actually got to make a piece ourselves that we could then get cast in the metal of our choice, and then buy. Here's what I did...

Please excuse the blob on the bottom of the ring shank, this photo was take prior to finishing because I was so excited to share it with the world! It was quite an expensive piece and cost me £22.50 in silver grain, but it IS pretty weighty. I love it though, and although I don't usually wear silver I've been wearing this. I think that I don't mind the colour because it's not a dainty, delicate piece. It's chunky and heavy, and I made it!

And now back to the main project...I was trying to think of other ways to build something bigger with my single component. We were encouraged to think of new, innovative connections, ones that involved our component joining to the next one without an extra component. This was hard, very hard. I felt my creativity was shutting down on me. If I'm honest, I sort of started to give up at this point in the project. A few other people around me seemed to, and I didn't find myself inspired by the work that the people who were getting on were doing. I don't mean that I didn't like their work, it just wasn't...me. The sort of ideas that were working involved a lot of geometric, sharp, smooth and pointy shapes. I do like simplistic designs, but I also like soft and gentle shapes. I tried to conform to the idea of slotting pieces together, but didn't like any of the results..

Sortly after doing these models my class had a critique. By this time I had made a metal version of this. For some reason I can't find any photos of it so I'll have to describe it as best I can! The flappy bits on the inside were cotton, and either side of the flappy bits was a piece of gilding metal. Instead of the cocktail sticks I had made metal rivets, which I used to hold each component together as well as joining the pieces onto the next one. My design proposal was to make a brooch that attatched from on side of a shirt/blouse collar to the other, or hooked onto buttons/botton holes so that a nice frill could be added to any outfit! However, when it came to the critique it was suggested that I think of alternative connections to rivets and that instead of moving away from the big frilly things I was looking at before that I embrace it more, and make my piece frillier and bigger.

Desperation

What to know what I'm doing now? Drawing pencil shavings that's blummin what! Ooooh I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm finding it hard to pick an interesting subject matter. I think I jumped to the houses thing a little too soon. I might return to it later on but for now I need more to draw from! But what? These were my ideas:
-text
-bikes
-coins
-corks (I still have a love for them since my FMP)
-clothing care labels (I really like this idea, but am struggling to think of how it can relate to the idea of repetition. But surely it counts if I repeat the form? Hmm)
-bottles
-cutlery
-keys
-stitches
-hangers
-toothbrushes
-pans
-zips
-pencil sharpenings

So I guess I better get back to drawing, I've got a lot to try out :/

Postal Gems

I seem to have stumbled across quite a remarkable jeweller. Her name is Nutre Arayavanish, and if I could steal her ideas, I would. The pieces of her work that I particularly love are her "flat-pack" paper and card pieces from the collections entitled 'Postal', 'Envelope' and 'All Year'. The idea of 'build-your-own' jewellery had never occurred to me before I saw Nutre's work, and I think it's brilliant! I'm going to HAVE to try to incorporate it into my own work somehow.

People in paper houses....

So, I've been trying to get a move on with my Design for Production project, but I've finding it hard. As I said, we're looking at repetitive forms, and Ive picked houses. So I decided to make some paper chain houses. I'm no Rob Ryan, but I'm trying!

Obviously this one's not finished yet, but I was keen to blog them because I think they're really cute.

"...and the Dish ran away with the Spoon"

I was just flicking through a few old albums on my laptop and found some images I'd scanned in from a book I'd taken out of the School Of Jewellery's teeny library. It was a whole book dedicated to SPOONS! "Sounds boring" you say? NAH AH! Have a look that these ones :



I believe that the book came about when the creator asked (I think it was 100) designers of various vocations to design a spoon. And from then the book was created. I'll check my facts when I can next access the book, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.