finished Vetkat pendant

Yay, it's done. Although I was hesitant at first about doing Vetkat inspired jewellery, because I convinced myself it could in no way relate to my work, I am really glad I made this piece. I managed to make the theme suit my way of makin jewellery and apply some of the concepts I am working with for my Btech. Aswell as these, I played with a new technique and got myself enamelling again...


A slight problem that I encountered while making this piece, was spending what felt like forever, sanding and filing and sanding and filing to ensure that the back of my setting would get a great highly polished finish. Only to have all the solder run and ruin it when I soldered my little tree...

... After resanding and polishing I ended up glass brushing my piece to give it a matte finish because I wasn't completely happy with the highly polished result.

Vetkat tree... awww, cute.

The photos below show the detail on the back of the setting for the enamel. Originally I was going to pierce out a tree shape and place another piece of enamel behind it, so it could be seen through the pierced shape. Then I started thinking about how the bale would work with the piercing and how I could integrate it into the pendant without it looking like it's been slapped on. That's why I decided to make my little tree. I used forged wires to make this tree, and left the top wire long so that it could be bent over into a bale for the chain...


The back of this pendant took me much longer than the enamel for the front did, which I dont mind at all. I feel like i've 'done my job' when I watch people looking at my jewellery and they admire the front but get a surprise when they turn it over and see the back is as detailed, if not more, than the front.

Vetkat enamels

For these enamels I decided to experiment with a new technique I've never used before. I rolled fine silver to as thin as it could go, then folded it over and rolled again. I repeated this process a couple of times until I ended up with very very thin silver. I was able to tear the silver without using tin snips...


... my first plan was to place the silver on a copper background and with transparent enamel, enamel over the silver. This would show a contrast between the copper and the colour ontop of the silver. The piece on the bottom left shows this process. I wasnt happy with the shape of my little tree, so I then tried enamelling over silver that I tore off with my hands instead of cutting with tin snips. Unfortuanately the 'Pea' enamel gave me a bit of trouble and the silver ended up forming a Eutectic alloy (where the silver and copper combine, because the coppers melting point is higher than that of the fine silver). This piece can be seen on the bottom right. Ultimately I tried the same technique of tearing little pieces of silver, only this time i enamelled the copper first, then placed the silver on top, put it back into the kiln, and let the silver sink into the enamel slightly... this was my favourite one of the three, and can be seen at the top of the photo...

Vetkat Designs

After looking at my reference material for this exhibition I sketched a few ideas I had for my piece. Ultimately the one I will manufacture is the pendant seen below...

... For the image of the tree on the front of the pendant I want to use either graphite enamelling or enamelling over etched silver. To include an aspect of my Btech theme into this piece I will be focusing on the 'hidden detail' that I try to include in all my pieces, but without using ocean references, and instead, Vetkat paintings. Below is the painting I used as a reference for this pendant...

The photos below show the other references I considered using and the sketches of possible pieces...

Vetkat references

For another exhibition we're taking part in, we are using paintings by artist Vetkat Kruiper as references and designing our pieces around them. When looking through his paintings, these were some of the images that stood out to me...






I plan on using these images in my work by either etching or chasing. At the same time I want to combine my B-Tech theme with the pieces, so I will focus on adding detail to the back of whatever piece I design...

Shanks

These pictures show the shanks and underneath of my ‘green’ ring. The rough forged shank can be seen as being reminiscent of a branch or twig because of the way its left unsanded and tapers towards the ends. With this ring I plan to set it from the outside, unlike the previous ring which was set from the middle.

Exhibition Ring

This is a ‘green’ ring that was submitted to the Vetkat exhibition in Westville. With this piece I tried a new way of setting the enamel from the inside so that the enamel could actually be incorporated into the piece. When attaching the claws I allowed the wire to run out the bottom of the ‘cup’ and then twisted it over and around the shank, to make it more stable, and allow the ring to flow.

Big Ring Designs

These are just some of the design drawings i did when thinking about the ring i was going to make for this project