watercolour & resin?

After using my watercolour paintings at Design Indaba, where i placed clear perspex over them to display my jewellery on, I would like to play around with the idea of settings filled with resin ontop of a section from a watercolour painting... hopefully the resin will give the painting that same vitreous surface appearance that the perspex did.

more watercolours...

I explored these little barnacles I found on the beach by photo copying them, and increasing their size...

The photo below shows the ridges of the barnacle up close...

To recreate these ridges and patterns of the barnacle, I used a wax candle as a resist and then painted over with colours that i feel represent the ocean. I slightly tilted my paper so that the colours would pool, and some sections would be richer in colour than others.


These watercolour squares were used in my display Design Indaba. I placed perspex over each one and used that as a platform for my jewellery.

Playing with watercolours

To explore my subject matter/references more closely, i decided to look at sections of them, and then paint it...
The photo below shows one of my favourite pictures, burrowing clams. I looked at the shapes around the edges of the clams, and the detail on the inside of them...

Mirjam Hiller

While browsing through The Carrot Box Blog, I found a Jeweller called Mirjim Hiller from Germany. These rings are interesting and I find that they relate to my work because the emphasis to detail on the shanks is as much as on top of the ring itself...

Completed Ring

Looking at my finished piece, I am not entirely happy with the setting. I enjoyed experimenting and learning what NOT to do though... The edges of the setting did not fold in the way I had intended, this might have been because I forged the setting before bending it up and soldering, and possibly because my metal was slightly too thick.

The underneath of the setting though I am very happy with! I feel that the shank being bent to the shape of the pierced out sections worked out very well. Since the focus of this piece was to bring detail to the hidden areas of jewellery, much like the hidden world beneath the surface of the sea, I feel that the piece was successful...

attaching the shank...

To make sure the shank flowed into the setting I tapered and forged the ends, then moulded them around the shapes that i had previously pierced out. Additional wire was added to the shank so that it could form a complete frame around the pierced out sections on the setting.

View from the back...

Seeing as the focus with these rings is what happens underneath the ring, i decided to pierce sections of the setting out. This was because the underneath of the pearl was as pretty as the top, and it would be a waste to cover it up.