Jewellery Council Collection Awards Design Competition

A Journey Through a World of Colour

Every year for the annual Jewelex Expo, the Jewellery Council of South Africa holds a competition known as the Jewellery Council Collection Awards Design Competition. For this year the theme is ' A Journey Through a World of Colour'. Jewellery designers are challenged to create a commercial pair of earrings using any material, that fulfill the theme. I think that this is a wonderful opportunity to use my special technique to oxidize  copper to form rainbow colours.

My gooseberry pods after oxidation

I recently developed a new idea to build a static flower by cutting out rows of petals and then rolling them up to form a tight bud. I discovered this technique while making my 5 flowers. Although this technique worked well for the 5 flowers project, when I made my first prototype for the 'world of colours' project, I was not happy with the result. This technique is done by rolling up a strip of petals to create a flower. I discovered that after rolling up the row of flowers, the base remained flimsy and I had to solder a solid disc onto the bottom for reinforcement. 

Five Flowers bud

Bud after pickling

I was not happy with the result because when the rolled up petals are soldered, it is difficult to go in and polish the petals so I tried avoiding soldering after rolling at all costs. To avoid this, I tried soldering a reinforcement wire to the bottom of the flower but this technique was very unsuccessful because the seam is too visible and it looks unpleasant. I decided that I will have to solder the rolled up petals onto a base for it to be strong enough. Another aspect that put me off is the gaps between the petals, I feel that they are too open. For future I will have to put the petals closer together. 

Final result

Petal row and reinforcement wire

Coral Tree

Earlier this week, I was taking a drive and I noticed that all the coral trees in my town were bare of leaves, Only seedpods and flowers were left to decorate the trees. I don't like the coral tree's leaves as they are a dull brown green colour and they always seem to have warts on them. I stopped in the middle of the road to pick some flowers and pods for some new inspiration. I decided to play with some copper to recreate one of these pods.

Here are the pods of the coral tree in different stages

A pod that I made in Copper

Plat Africa 2

Plat Africa

The theme for the Plat Africa 2019 competition is “love in Platinum”, I will be creating a spray brooch resembling a gooseberry twig in sterling silver carrying three gooseberry pods made from platinum. The reason that I have chosen to make a spray brooch is because of their meaning when given to someone. A spray brooch is a brooch made out of gold or platinum to look like twigs or a bunch of flowers. When someone receives a spray brooch, it is like receiving an everlasting bunch of flowers, a metaphor to undying love as platinum does not tarnish. I have chosen to use Gooseberry pods as the pods resemble the concealment of thoughts or emotions. The three pods in platinum, growing in size, and the largest one broken open to reveal a pearl resembles the expression of thought. The use of platinum represents the strength of these barriers. I have chosen to use a pearl in place of a gooseberry because pearls are a symbol of suffering; they are formed by a grievance in the flesh of oysters. The pod releasing the pearl shows the release of grievance which allows the relationship to grow.

Platinum Prototype Two

Texture

I have been experimenting with using sandpaper to create a texture on the surface of leaves. In my previous prototype I used P80 for the leaves and the second P800. I must say that I definitely prefer the texture created by the P80 sandpaper as it lets the leaves appear more hairy. I tried roll milling the wire of the stem with P80 sandpaper in the wire section of the roller to create a texture on the surface but this did not work as well as expected as the piece of wire still came out looking square opposed to rounded as I imagined. I ended up engraving lines on the stem to create a more natural surface. I also discovered a technique to roll out the wire for my stems to make the wire go from thick to thin; this involves rolling the wire up to a marked line and not exceeding that point allowing the wire to have staggered thick to thin areas resembling a branch. The best way pierce out natural looking leaves is to cut them out using tin snips as this allows the ends of the leaves to curl down in a more natural way.

Leaves

staggered thicknesses thin to thick

P80 texture on wire, not even noticeable 

Recycling Solar Panels

I struck gold last week while cleaning out the guarage, damaged aluminum solar geyser pipes that my father kept in the guarage roof. I found them now after eight years, using them to make some gooseberry pods

Gooseberry pod Inspiration

Gooseberry:

Inspiration Image
Gooseberry Pods

The above image is of a gooseberry pod that I snapped off my plant last night, and I pinned it upside down to my inspiration board so that it can dry beautifully, that is why it looks upside-down but in actual fact it is the right way. I noticed the interesting silhouette that the shadow of the twig created and I took this snapshot. If my main light in my bedroom hadn't fused, I wouldn't have had this beautiful image, this was created through a light beaming from a 90 degree angle next to the plant. sometimes inspiration can come from the most random occurrences. 

Objects created from the silhouette inspiration
oxidized copper

How the pods were constructed:

I dissected one of the pods to examine the components. I noticed that the bods have a 5 way leaf pattern and I made a little design on paper to be placed on a sheet of copper. I had to redo this design so that i could get the correct shape of the actual pod. 

 I then  textured some 0.4mm copper sheet using cardboard that I scratched in different directions to create this interesting texture. I roll-milled the texture onto the surface of the cardboard.



















Here is my little "flower" after creating the grooves on the surface using a round chisel shaped punch

Party Spoons

Epiphany at a party

During the weekend, we were celebrating the birthday of one of my friends and we all sat around the table laughing and joking around. During the birthday celebration, I had baked a delicious double choc ganache cake and I had bought paper plates and spoons with so that nobody has to do the dishes. Everybody loved the cake that I baked.

As the evening progressed, everyone formed little groups of different conversations, me being the socially awkward one of the lot, always having jewellery thoughts swirling in my head, sat alone to the side. This is when something caught my eye, the cardboard label from the packet of disposable spoons. I took it with both hands and an idea popped into my head. If I manipulate the opening slightly, I can turn it into a ring!!! Right then and there, while everyone else was chatting and drinking the night away, I had a spark of an idea. A little sublime moment of joy that I shared with myself, everyone else there oblivious to the amazing phenomenon that had just occurred.

A few days afterwards, I decided to have some fun with my new idea, after manipulating paper, here are some of the outcomes: