Let's talk about...Jewellery

I'm happy to say that I made a substantial amount of development work and finally moved on to rendering the final collection. I was so focused on work that I nearly forgot about my birthday (9th August)! To celebrate good progress I scanned and photographed some of the things I've been working on, so today's post will be featuring models, more of my design development drawings, and a small sneak peak of final renderings.
Enjoy!












 Looking back at my process of rendering (in pictures) I'm quite surprised to notice that I don't have a single way of working. I sort of go back and forth between designs; I might do a bit of shading here or add some colour there. I generally add gouache highlights when all designs are drawn out and coloured in; but it's always pretty much  about whatever works for you.
 My main tips for anyone interested in rendering will be -  get templates to draw gems nicely, keep a scalpel close by when rendering in coloured pencil to ensure the tip is sharp, cover paper you're not currently working on so you don't smudge design. Listen to the music. Stay focused.

I've been working hard on designing pieces for Perfect 10 competition, and it was only today that I finally had a chance to scan some of my drawings from the Phoenix Collection (current working title). So sit back and enjoy!

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.

So, I'm finally finished - my collection has been submitted today at 12pm. Here are some photos of collection, packaging and display set up.

While looking through my learning log for The Garden of Your Heart project, I've found my design work for cufflink competition. I didn't win, but it still could be of interest to someone, so here you go.








Also a bit of update on The Garden project - I have all my pieces, all studs are soldered to pins and at the moment wait for final polishing - hopefully over weekend I will have chance to do some final work on them. I will need to contact gold plating company - hopefully tomorrow to get some idea of cost and time it could take them. I'm also working on other stuff for assessment - my portfolio, learning log, costings and critical analysis. But all in all, I have everything under control.  

The past week has been quite busy - I'm lucky enough to have bench at home, so I had extra incentive to stay in and work on cleaning up my castings. So far I have 2 double holder pendants, 4 single ones, 11 floral charms - I should get back 2 extra ones on Monday - I had to recast them, all studs, with 10 pairs soldered to pins, and 3 waiting to be soldered. You guys wouldn't believe how many plastic bags I needed to put everything separately! I also have my laser cut displays - so I'm proud to say that I'm on schedule.

I'm back, alive and well - I haven't written in a while, but there wasn't a lot of stuff happening - I've been waiting to get back castings, and for some plywood I've ordered and different stuff. So today will be just some snapshots of marketing research I did, adverts, packaging and display ideas.














 That's it for today - I need to prepare for tomorrow's presentation - wish me good luck guys!