Must say I love my Knew Concepts saw frame. I used to struggle fiddling about with intricate piercing but I treated myself and have never looked back. I wouldn't use any other frame now. Pricey, but worth the extra money. Just look at the concentration!
Thursday, 11 August 2016
Creating soldered bezels for polymer clay
Jewellery making has been a bit slow over the last few days. Enjoying watching the Olympics and as it only comes round every four years I don't feel at all guilty. When I have been making, it's been outside in the sunshine and making good use of the workbench Mr J bought me for my 60th birthday. An unusual pressie to buy your wife I know..... but then I like to think I'm an unusual wife!
Got both these soldered this morning and they are ready to go to the next stage.
The larger one is having a centre inspired by sunflowers inside so should be truly eye catching. Not sure what colour the other one will be yet, but I'm leaning towards a marine inspired colour palette.
Must say I love my Knew Concepts saw frame. I used to struggle fiddling about with intricate piercing but I treated myself and have never looked back. I wouldn't use any other frame now. Pricey, but worth the extra money. Just look at the concentration!
Must say I love my Knew Concepts saw frame. I used to struggle fiddling about with intricate piercing but I treated myself and have never looked back. I wouldn't use any other frame now. Pricey, but worth the extra money. Just look at the concentration!
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Sketches for a sunflower necklace
The last few weeks have seen me honing my wire wrapping and
weaving skills. With wirework it’s all about practice, practice, and yet more
practice. I really wanted to get to the stage of being able to make interlacing
and weaving on a symmetrical piece, and I wanted the backs of my pieces to look
neat and symmetrical too. Several pieces of jewellery with an elfin flavour
later and I am pleased with my progress.
The Aubretia pendant was my first micro mosaic piece – the closest I think I have ever felt to painting a picture with jewellery making. It has gone off to a new home so I am especially happy.
Now I’m feeling like making a bold and colourful statement piece inspired by sunflowers. Here are the first very rough sketches – you don’t need to be a Van Gogh to record your ideas, doodles work fine. It’s just helpful to be able to organise what’s in your head and play around with options regarding shapes.
Now I know what I am aiming at I
will be able to do a more detailed watercolour before I start construction.
This week’s learning curve will be all about learning some new polymer clay
techniques. I will be using a clay roller to
make some colour gradations, using a technique called a ‘skinner blend’
More about all that in my next post.
The Aubretia pendant was my first micro mosaic piece – the closest I think I have ever felt to painting a picture with jewellery making. It has gone off to a new home so I am especially happy.
Now I’m feeling like making a bold and colourful statement piece inspired by sunflowers. Here are the first very rough sketches – you don’t need to be a Van Gogh to record your ideas, doodles work fine. It’s just helpful to be able to organise what’s in your head and play around with options regarding shapes.
I decided after some doodling that I wanted petals in different sizes to create a dynamic shape, and after really looking at pictures of sunflowers, I realised how beautifully textured the centres are, chocolate and purple colours lovely against the orange petals as the photo below shows.