Jewellery Designs by Sarah Birt Now For Sale in the National Portrait Gallery, London

I had some very exciting news last Friday!

A range of my jewellery inspired by the Tudor and Jacobean portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, London will be on sale from Monday in their new pop-up shop on the second floor.

You can see the build of the shop in progress below:

The shop accompanies an exciting new exhibition entitled The Real Tudors: Kings and Queens Rediscovered, which opens tomorrow (Friday, 12th September).

The paintings on display juxtapose portraits of famous Tudor Kings and Queens alongside some of the objects that they most treasured in life. Examples of such objects include Henry VIII's rosary, a page from Edward VI's diary in which he reports his father's death and Elizabeth I's locket ring, which contains a miniature portrait traditionally thought to depict her mother, Anne Boleyn.

Best of all, this display is completely free!

Taking note of the highly decorative detailing on the historic costumes depicted in the portraits of Elizabeth I, I designed an entirely new range of jewellery to celebrate the fascinating styles of dress in sixteenth-century Britain.

The Lace Point Earrings above evoke the lace cuffs depicted in The Ditchley Portrait of Elizabeth I.

This Tudor Hand Pendant (above) with the Tudor Hand Earrings (below) were directly inspired by another Portrait of Elizabeth I that features Queen Elizabeth I holding a feather fan.

Finally, this Tudor Ruff Ring encapsulates the stiff, starched decorative ruffs worn by monarchs and courtiers alike giving a modern, wearable twist to a striking, historic design.

The National Portrait Gallery is situated in central London, with Leicester Square and Charing Cross as the tube nearest stations. The address is 2 St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE.

I really hope that you like these new designs and also enjoy the display!

Crafting the Image of Elizabeth I Part Two

After soldering, pieces can often look completely hopeless. Sometimes I think I've completely destroyed something until I've pickled (cleaned in a weak acid) and polished it. Below you can see that Elizabeth looks quite mucky and not particularly regal!

After a lot of elbow grease and polishing with sandpapers of various grades, the design becomes clearer and the brooch starts to looks much more wearable. Although the brooch in the photo below has clearly been polished a lot, it still needs a lot of work. I use 240 grade emery paper to take away any fire stains and then work down to finer grades of paper such as 1000 and sometimes even 2000 to get that high shine. It takes a lot of time but at least you can do this whilst watching a film! In fact, sometimes I find that I associate pieces forever with what I've watched whilst polishing them! Today it was The Simpsons. Perhaps I should have watched something a little more historical?

Finally, this is the finished brooch (below). It has been polished to a very high shine. The detailing is clear and I'm pretty pleased with the result! I would like to see if I could make a smaller version to have as earrings and perhaps as cufflinks or a pendant? This is a basic version and I could set gemstones and make more elaborate ruffs as well, which might be fun!

Crafting the Image of Elizabeth I Part One

Queen Elizabeth I was very aware of how important her image was to her subjects and to the rest of the world. She cultivated her appearance as the Virgin Queen by applying make up and wearing elaborate wigs and gowns. She famously never married, choosing to retain sole power as Queen of England.

Inspired by surviving portraits of Elizabeth I, I decided to see if I could recreate her image in copper and silver. The portrait below was a particular inspiration. It dates from c. 1588 and commemorates the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection although it is rarely on display.

© National Portrait Gallery, London

First, I had to pare down the design to make it easier to pierce from silver sheet. I drew my design onto the sheet and drilled tiny holes where the eyes, eyebrows and mouth were going to be. The next stage was to pass a saw blade through the holes and sketch out the design by cutting into the metal. This is incredibly fiddly and you need an exceptionally steady hand! There is an added sense of fear because if you make a mistake, you cannot rectify it and you have to start again. 

Next, I needed to cut out a heart shaped piece of copper for the hair. I wanted it to cover the detail in the face and to strengthen the design so it had to be big enough to fit neatly behind the ruff.

The fear of filling the pierced design with solder is very real and so I've found the best way to achieve good results is to use very tiny pieces of solder positioned very carefully. I then laid the silver Elizabeth onto the copper sheet and moved the flame continuously whilst checking to see if the two metals were fixed together.

After soldering, Elizabeth I looked quite like a zombie! The flux has reacted here to provide a greenish tinge and the copper is demonstrating the beautiful fire patterns that can be achieved through heating copper and then quenching in cold water very quickly.

I've included a photo below of the process of soldering a brooch pin onto the back of Elizabeth. I used silver solder to solder between a silver pin and the copper sheet.

My sketchbook at the moment

These are a few pages from my most recent sketchbook.

You can see where the Hokusai ring came from

and a few variations on the theme, which I think will turn out quite nicely too!

These are some designs for tiaras:

I think Smaug would approve of having a tiara designed after him! He would be sitting on a pile of jewels, which I think would be suitably sparkly.

Ocean Waves New Jewellery Range

This is a new jewellery range that I am working on at the moment. The inspirations are Hokusai's wave, Tudor portraiture featuring Elizabeth I and the defeat of the Spanish Armada using silver and the gemstone kyanite.