jewellery

6 Mar 2015

Mother Nature knows how to cheer us up

Spring is Nature’s way of saying “let’s party!”   Robin Williams.

I had always planned to make a large painting of the early spring, when the first leaves are at the bottom of the trees, and they seem to float in space in a wonderful way. But the arrival of spring can’t be done in one picture.  David Hockney

I discussed in my previous post the fabulous showing of snowdrops I have this year.  Unfortunately, they’re now passing their best and the first to flower are now withering, but I can still enjoy them for a little longer yet.

A little splash of cheery sunshine in my otherwise largely dormant garden.
A little splash of cheery sunshine in my otherwise largely dormant garden.

I also mentioned that the first crocuses were also emerging, adding a much needed and appreciated colour amongst the grass at the front of the house.

Yesterday I had one of my weekly chores to attend to – fetching the wheelie bin from outside the house and putting it away.  I always keep a selection of planted plots in front of them in a vague and largely ineffective attempt at bin-subterfuge, so it’s a tad tedious to position the bin and replace them all – especially in bad weather.

How fabulous is the curled structure of these crocus petals with their tiny delicate stripes.
How fabulous is the curled structure of these crocus petals with their tiny delicate stripes.

Having done that, I decided, as the sun was briefly out between showers, to survey our tiny walled garden and get a bit of much-needed fresh air.  I’d done the same task a few days ago, so wasn’t expecting any surprises, but was delighted to find that a good number of my bulb planting was reaping rewards with quite a few crocuses in flower and even a handful of the Tête-á-tête daffodils already in bloom – where a mere few days ago, they looked to be well off showing any colour.

I’ve always held the view that spring bulbs are Mother Nature’s way of cheering us up after the cold and lack of colour in winter.  She’s jolly clever; it works a treat.  I love this period where the worst of winter is behind you (but may yet come back for a bite) and the whole of spring and summer is ahead.

I couldn't even begin to catch the fabulous lustre of these purple crocuses.
I couldn’t even begin to catch the fabulous lustre of these purple crocuses.

I took some photographs, largely to cheer me up if nothing else. I suspect, if you want to trawl back through my posts, that you’ll find that I do this every year.  But it was quite breezy and the sun that was out when I set off to grab my camera only lasted about 2 minutes after I fired it up – so the photos aren’t quite as cheery as they would have been with sun on them.

It has been my habit for a few years to make a mental note of the time of day that the garden blackbirds noisily roost each evening – I used to actually document it for a while.  In the depths of winter if can be well before 4pm and last night, I noted that it was the first evening that it was after 6pm, so it felt like another little milestone towards summer was passed – the evenings are tangibly lengthening now.

My work this week:

These Carnelian and Butter Jade beads look like berries.
These Carnelian and Butter Jade beads look like berries.

I’ve spent a great deal of my working week spiral wrapping various gemstones for bracelets and necklaces to commission.  I’ve also made a couple of new ones for sale.  I loved how these deep red Carnelian and lovely fresh green butter jade looked together; like berries at differing stages of ripeness.

In fact, I’m only even getting chance to write this post as I’m giving my fingers a rest between sessions of polishing.  I find the bit that suffers most is my left thumb, in trying to keep a tight grip on the piece that my right hand is busy polishing – the smaller the piece, the greater the discomfort.  I’ve tried an assortment of gripping devices and methods over the years, but there’s nothing that can match the subtle changes of grip and positioning that the human thumb can manage.

beads riveted to hammered copper paddles.
Large Palmwood saucer beads riveted to hammered copper paddles.

Whilst ordering some of the gemstones I needed this week, I decided to try some wooden beads my supplier had to offer.  Wood has the advantage of being very light compared to gemstones and glass and for earring wearers like myself that can’t get on with weighty earrings, means that I can offer something quite chunky in size that is still comfortable to wear.

I paired these gorgeous Palmwood saucer beads with some hammered copper paddles cut from thin copper sheet and they’ve been riveted in place with balled bronze pins.  I chose bronze as the colour, once it’s been melted, is quite close to the colour of copper anyway, but the bronze makes an especially nicely round ball when melted and is lovely to rivet with.  The beads were called saucers, but they’re rather more like shallow bicones as they’re quite tall at the centre hole, which isn’t obvious at the angle shown.

27 Jan 2015

My first pieces utilising the Silhouette

I mentioned in my last post that I was a new owner of a Silhouette cutting machine and having great fun with it.  My initial intentions were to use it as a supplementary tool for my metal clay work – for making texture plates, stencils and actually cutting design elements directly from thinly rolled clay itself.  But the more I read about it and watched YouTube tutorials of it in use (before I even got it), the more I realised it was an incredibly versatile piece of kit and I knew it would be well used, for a variety of different types of work.

The various stages of the copper etching process.
The various stages of the etching process; vinyl resist, clean copper plate, newly etched copper sheet, cut and polished earring shapes and at the front, a finished pair of antiqued copper earrings.

Whilst I’ve certainly made great headway in the metal clay direction, already having made several new texture plates and templates (and many birthday cards and gift boxes), the more I work with it, the more ideas it sparks – and it was such a tangential thought that has kept me occupied for the last few days.

I’ve spent time in the past doing salt water etching and whilst I loved the results and enjoyed the process, a key element to the success of the pieces I was etching was an old laser printer that I used for the resist designs – making a black and white print onto coated paper and then ironing this resist design onto the prepared copper surface – in itself, a very tedious and haphazard process.  But my old printer started giving progressively inferior results and once I got a new (to me) laser printer from Freecycle, I decommissioned the old machine.  But modern machines don’t use the toners that worked so well with such processes, so my etching was put on hold as newer techniques got my attention.

A newly etched piece of copper just marked up to cut into a pair of earrings.
A newly etched piece of copper just marked up to cut into a pair of earrings.

But having cut out some designs in adhesive vinyl to use as opaque masters to make photopolymer plates, I wondered if the vinyl itself might stick directly on copper to act as a resist – it stuck so cleanly to clear acrylic that I thought it was likely it would stick well to copper too.  So I dusted off my etching equipment – luckily all put away together and complete – and gave it a go.

It works a treat – better than I dared hope.  Etching is one of those processes where 90% of the effort is in the proper preparation – you simply can’t cut corners or try to sidestep any stages.  The better your preparation, the better the results are likely to be – that effort really does pay dividends.  So it can take a frustratingly long time to get to the good stuff and the fun part.

The very best bit of course is peeling off all the protective stuff you’ve stuck to the copper to prevent the non-design parts etching, to see if it worked.  You can’t get a proper idea of the success of the etch until you see it all – sometimes a piece that looks good initially is spoiled by an edge of the mask lifting and leaving a streak of erroneous and unattractive etching where it’s not wanted.

Obviously, preparing a graphic to use in this manner requires some time in the Silhouette software, but I’m really enjoying that aspect of the work – drawing all of the designs shown myself from scratch as vector drawings.  It has allowed me to revisit design ideas in my sketch book that I’d struggled to realise with other methods.

Newly etched raw copper design, ready for cutting into a pait of earrings.
A newly etched copper design for a pair of fan shaped earrings. I made these curly tendril shapes after looking at some gorgeous Arts and Crafts pieces and wanting to capture some of that feeling.

It also requires a slightly different thinking and the vinyl resist is of a different nature from a graphic created to print out – you don’t want delicate details unattached to other design elements, or overlapping so that they cut bits off each other and you don’t want lots of tiny holes between elements that will make it tricky to get a clean result without any rogue bits of sticky vinyl.  You also need a good mix of dark and light areas to give a balanced result.

But this has been a most enjoyable and bonus diversion – I’d never even considered etching in my deliberations over the Silhouette – even if I never use it for anything other than birthday cards and etched designs, it will totally justify my family’s investment in it for me.  Not to mention that I’m truly enjoying working with it.

My first finished pair of earrings - featuring a delicate leafy design I drew myself.
My first finished pair of earrings – featuring a delicate leafy design I digitally drew myself.
The top of the etched earring required a little thought for the design of an earwire that would allow it to move freely, not just have a huge round eye. I settled on a little hammered scroll.
The top of the etched earring required a little thought for the design of an earwire that would allow it to move freely, not just have a huge round eye. I settled on a little hammered scroll, which allowed me a longer teardrop loop.

I’ve also really enjoyed working with the design software and find it very powerful for creating what I want – you just need to think about the structure of a shape and which drawing tools will create the shape you want.  I’ve always been fascinated with the regular repeating patterns in Moorish architecture and I’ve done a bit of tinkering with patterns formed from a repeating element – the geometric tools within the Silhouette studio software make such tasks a doddle and it’s astonishing to me that moving a shape just a little, creating more overlap or rotating the angle can give rise to an infinite number of different designs from a few simple shapes.

Geometric patterns formed by using either very regular o totally irregular shapes to create repeating patterns.
Geometric patterns formed by using either very regular or totally irregular shapes to create repeating patterns.
30 Aug 2008

Common product photography problems:

Perhaps the most common product photography problems I see posted about in forums like those on Etsy, is how to combat either dark photos with grey backgrounds which are supposed to be white, or backgrounds with a colour cast that are also supposed to be white.

Underexposure & incorrect white balance:

Both are very easily fixed, it’s how you’re exposing the shots that causes the greyness and incorrect white balance that causes colour casts.

A little exposure compensation on your camera will fix underexposure and grey backgrounds a treat – I’ve written a tutorial which covers both issues and several others. Choosing the correct white balance, or setting up a custom one for combined lighting sources can fix weird colour casts. Very often, both are an issue and fixing them in the camera will save a lot of post-processing work later.


See this page – underexposure of this nature is explained and illustrated about two thirds down the page: http://www.boo.myzen.co.uk/artisan.html

One simple adjustment on your camera will sort it out – if you can’t find the controls for it, come out of auto mode and try something like P (programmed auto) or A (aperture priority) instead – that often relinquishes a lot of controls the camera takes over in full auto mode.

21 Aug 2008

Jewellery and photography

My two passions are making jewellery and photography – and they spend a lot of time coming together.

I aim to post about both here and to incorporate articles I’ve already written on photographing jewellery into this format.

To follow shortly I have tutorials on photographing small objects to sell on places like Etsy.com and my own free lighting diffuser – i.e. you can make it free from found objects. The diffuser was used for the bracelet photograph above right.