Intermediate Jewellery Course Week One

Hello All!

Well, I started my shiny new jewellery course this week and the amount of possibilities that have been opened up for creating new jewellery designs is slightly overwhelming! Deciding what to focus on has been thankfully dictated to me by various deadlines. The course tutor has set us a task involving Seamus Heaney's poem Digging, which has several evocative references to writing, potatoes and of course digging! I started to think that I would make something literal perhaps involving a spade and a robin that drew on the fact that I really love the book called The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett but I soon realised that I could combine my interest in history with the reference to potatoes and make something using the image of Sir Walter Raleigh.

This idea combines many elements that have influenced my life so far. I have been studying miniature paintings for quite awhile and have been trying to practice my drawing skills again after a long period of abstinence. I worked at HM Tower of London for two years and Sir Walter spent A LOT of time shut up there! He was a poet so there is another link to Seamus Heaney and I am going to use pebbles and set them as precious stones in the piece to look like potatoes, which will hopefully add a touch of humour and whimsy!

I have used Nicolas Hilliard's miniature as a reference because it has a slightly odd elvish look to it that I thought would look good on silver...

My first attempt, which I started on my tube journey home after work looks rather swarthy

I am happier with my second attempt. I have tried to keep the lines solid so that they will stand out when they are etched onto silver.

I will post more photos of my work in progress as it progresses! :-)

Treasures from Denmark

The Danish crown jewels are quite spectacular in the Rosenberg Palace and I am going to be designing rings based on what I have seen!

This bird cage is so beautiful and useful too!! :-)

The Danish National Museum is absolutely brilliant. It is most like The British Museum in London and is beautifully presented with a whole host of amazing finds. I was, of course, looking for Viking artefacts but they have Roman swords, 18th century rooms decorated in the style of the original building that houses the collection and the oldest ship ever found. The gold torque is the greatest Viking treasure ever found made of solid gold!


I was amazed by these gorgeous gold goblets with spindly horse head handles.

Look at these amazing helmets!

Copenhagen

Well, I have returned from the land of Vikings!

I really enjoyed my weekend in Copenhagen and it is well worth a visit if, like me, you love history and sightseeing! Denmark is of course famous for design and it doesn't disappoint! I will post some photos of the bits and pieces that I picked up in due course with some recommendations for shops too!

This is the Round Tower, which travels up in a spiralled cobble way to give stunning views across Copenhagen:


Then there's of course The Little Mermaid statue, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale. This is a major tourist spot but I'm not sure that the residents of Copenhagen are that keen on it!

Finally this is Nyhavn, a really pretty place to people watch.


Looks great in the sunshine, doesn't it?!! :-)

Adventure

Hello All!

I am off on an adventure and will be sure to take lots of photos!

Here are some photos I took in St. James' Park earlier today...



Meanwhile, you can get 10% off everything in my shop by using the coupon code 10PERCENTOFFPLEASE during the checkout process.

My Designs on Porcelain!

I have been trying to decide how to use my designs in other ways and here is one of the ideas that I came up with!

I have used Marabu Porcelain Painter pens to hand draw my favourite designs onto two little side plates and a trinket dish.

The blank porcelain was purchased from Habitat and the pens can be purchased from the London Graphic Centre in Covent Garden for £3.33 each! All you have to do is draw on your design, leave it to dry for 24 hours and then they are even dishwasher safe.

They are great and really fun to use!

Victorian Jewellery- Getting Inspiration

I have recently been collecting little silver brooches and pins from the Victorian era or roundabout. You can see in the above photograph some tiny lace pins that are some of my favourites! I am a sucker for tiny things and these little gems are exquisitely made and truly unique.

I realised that the Victorians often used motifs that I have always liked to use in my jewellery designs such as crescent moons

and animals such as foxes so I think that this explains my affinity for Victorian design.

I find sweetheart brooches particularly fascinating because there are such a lot of them in existence but you generally never find the same design twice. These were highly sentimental items and would have meant a lot to the original owners.

Swallows are a recurring theme in these brooches and they are depicted either in engraved locket brooches, which usually have a space for secret photographs to be kept at the back and also pierced designs. These are really lovely and in the language of Victorian sentimental jewellery swallows mean 'I shall return'.


I am hoping to develop my jewellery making skills throughout this year and am very keen to try out engraving, enamelling and lost wax casting. Enamelling in particular would be a lovely thing to try as it is always nice to add a bit of colour to silver and you can achieve some very beautiful effects by mixing colours.
I have tried cold enamelling before as you can see in the photo below...
but I would prefer a more translucent effect, which I think you can only get through more traditional kiln enamelling. Unfortunately kilns cost several hundred pounds so I would need to do a course of some kind so that I can use proper jewellery making studio supplies and equipment!

I don't think it hurts to be a bit more ambitious in your designs so I am trying to evolve my style so that I use more elaborate decoration and add texture to the surface of the silver that I use. This will likely be a long process though!

Vikings... LOTS of vikings!

If you've peeked at my shop recently, you might have noticed that I have been collecting quite a few vintage viking treasures recently! I've also started making new viking designs (as you can see from the photo of my sketchbook below, I have a few unrealized plans for new viking marauders!) Unfortunately, I broke my tiny drill bit last night so I will have to wait until the new one that I have ordered arrives before I can do the viking hordes proper justice. I am hoping to have a bit of fun with making completely unique and more intricate jewellery designs to accompany my classic pendants. Watch this space for my (possibly over) ambitious attempts! :)