Let's talk about...Jewellery

As promised today's post will focus on the process of rendering my design for Opal Auctions Jewellery Drawing Awards.

I've been mentioning recently an entry for the competition that I was working on, and today I'll finally explain about the competition and share with you, my design development.
Jewellery Drawing Awards is a competition organized by Opal Auctions and Gem Rock Auction, and rules are really straightforward - you simply needed to look through opals or any other gem on the website and design piece featuring your chosen gem/s. So you can see why I decided to enter!
As all my projects this one started with phase 1 - research.



 After looking at opals themselves, I've looked at some existing opal jewellery.




I've actually had a good idea of what I wanted to base my jewellery theme on - during summer holidays I was working on a drawing featuring Queen Titania from Midsummer Night's Dream, therefore I've decided to make a necklace inspired by it.



 After deciding on a theme I just started to do a lot of drawings.

It's third Goth-ember Sunday, and finally, a time to introduce one of Halloween symbols - Witches!

As a bit of side note, as much as I like witches in fairy tales shown either as terrifying hags, or enchanting sorceresses, I feel like pointy hats and broomsticks is slightly overused stereotype of what a witch should be. I like to lean towards different type - a witch that is respectful of nature and lives protecting harmony and balance of life on earth. This lovely music video to track by Grimes- Dream Fortress was very inspiring - you should definitely check it out!

Today's Goth-ember Sunday features one of most feared in everyday life creatures - spiders! I'll start off by sharing my inspirational illustration and poem...

Hello, hello, hello! I’m back!
I know it has been a long time, but it’s been some crazy times – I’m currently in between job search (in fact I have another interview tomorrow, so wish me luck!), designing for competition and home stuff, so finding time to write the new post was really tough. 
In fact, I planned to write a new post for Halloween, but… I had no Internet! Yeah, you heard right. I’ve decided to be clever and change to Fibre Optic Broadband two weeks ago, everything was fine for like two days, and last Saturday – no Internet at all, no amount of resetting, unplugging router and checking cables helped.

As you must be aware I was awarded support for young jewellers from William Dudley Trust. I've been checking recently the Internet and stumbled on my information on William Dudley Trust website. If you are interested then, check it out!

This final instalment of Inspiring September Friday comes slightly later than usual - after writing a post I completely forgot to publish it and went on to do other things. But no worries it's here now and it will feature someone very special, who I discovered very recently, and completely by accident - Alessio Boschi.



Due to competition I’m recently thinking of entering, I’ve been looking at different opal jewellery, and one of Boschi’s designs (Plumes) caught my eye.



Although born in Italy, he works in Bangkok, Thailand. His brand founded in 2011 uses different gems, such as black opals, pearls, jade in unbelievable jewellery creations. Taking inspiration from the world of nature and architecture his works are marvels. Some of them are multifunctional – like Plumes, Cathedral rings and Orchidee Royale, something that I genuinely admire – designing and making a multifunctional set, takes a lot of thought and consideration, more than just ensuring it will be possible for production and will look pretty. His use of colours and gems is astounding – don’t believe me? Just scroll down the page to find Volcano set, and look at that close up of ring. Isn’t it just beautiful?