After making a brief start on testing some new handmade jewellery designs a few weeks ago, which was cut short when I injured my hand quite badly, I’ve finally managed to get back to work on trialling and resolving my new range.
And I thought I’d give you a sneak peek on where I’m up to – and into my design processes.
New handmade jewellery components ready to go into the tumbler, after which they’ll be worked on further to resolve them into finished jewellery.
My new handmade jewellery range
In terms of my new range, well it’s a botanical-inspired range of handmade jewellery based on the beautiful plants leaves, flowers and seed pods I see all around me in the Blue Mountains: in my garden, while out walking in the bush and in the wonderful public gardens in these parts.
This collection will feature some gemstone beads to add some colour and a different texture to my designs.
My design processes
As for my design processes, depending on what I’m making, sometimes the very first step is photography, whether specifically working to take photos for a new range or referring back to photographs I have taken in the past.
Whether photography is a starting point or not, I always start working on new designs by making rough sketches and using those to problem solve how a design might work – including as different pieces (necklaces, earrings, rings, etc.). I make lots of scribbly notes and drawings that probably wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me!
Generally I then work on properly drawing the designs, depending on what I’m making. The drawings have to be suitable for me to work with on an ongoing basis – so very clear and with simple lines I can follow rather than shading or anything more complex.
Drawn designs which have been scanned in and printed out so that I can start work on testing them using metal.
Once I’m happy with the drawings I scan them in and clean them up in Photoshop to make them nice and crisp and a suitable size. Then I lay them out in InDesign and print out a sheet of them which I can work from in order to test the new designs, often varying the sizes so I can see what will work.
I then usually work by cutting out the designs on paper and gluing them onto silver, given that more often than not my first step is to saw the designs out in metal. Then I get to work with my files, hammers, punches, blow torch and more to work on the pieces.
Cut out handmade jewellery components on my bench in various stages of completion.
Usually at the time I take new designs to my bench I haven’t completely resolved how they will work in their finished form – something that would probably horrify some of my former jewellery lecturers! So my work at that point involves lots of decision making, problem solving and testing to figure out how each design will best work as a finished piece of jewellery.
Some of my original designs don’t make it through this process and end up on my bench as ‘bench junk’ until I can get back to them. Or they may even end up in my scrap box!
You can see some of the pieces that have made it through the process in my handmade jewellery shop.
