Let's talk about...Jewellery

Hello, hello, hello! It's been some time, but I'm back, with double amount of energy and excited to start new work!
You might be wondering why I've used phrase Perfect 10 in the title, and no- it's not related to that song from The Beautiful South. Perfect 10 is a jewellery competition from GIT - The Gem and Jewellery Institute of Thailand.



The theme of the competition is Playful and Luxurious and requires you to design at least 3 collection pieces within "work" selecting from ring, bracelet, necklace, earrings or brooch.
To find out more about competition visit The Gem and Jewellery Institute website.
Over the past 2 weeks or so, I've started to put together some rough ideas, for what my design could be based on and did some sketches as well.
My first though was something very much Thailand related - like architecture, or landscape, or even traditional Thailand jewellery, but I felt that was maybe bit too obvious.

 I wanted my designs to be new and original and maybe drawing inspiration from Thailand was hitting the ball too close to the home. The interesting idea that curiously enough was suggested by my brother was designing gender neutral/male jewellery influenced by rope binding from traditional Muay Thai boxing (called Kaad Chuek).
 
 But while I loved and still love the idea, I wasn't sure if it was playful enough - so I looked for an inspiration to company which designed and manufactured some of the most intricate and beautiful masterpieces ever.
That being of course House of Fabergé.

 Name Fabergé is synonymous with luxury and highest level of artistry. Additionally a lot of the pieces have a dose of playfulness as well - like that timepiece egg with tiny rooster in one of the pictures above.
So I sat down for some sketching...

  I really liked that design with bird, but decided to make a bit more of inspiration research and checked what's out there already...


 I also made some initial sketches... The idea was to have ring, maybe necklace and brooch with this egg shape which could swing open, or slide to show phoenix bird (or any other bird really) inside. I thinking of gold and some gems for materials - maybe enamelling, but we'll see.