In last stage, I carved wax and using silica gel to translate lizard skin, and colored them afterwards.
Based on my research on lizard foot textures and more exploration of colors, I carved another pieces of wax to translate skins. Differ from last time, I added dry color powder into liquid silica gel and colored them into another visual results.
Compared with last time, I prefer this result.
As I posted in my blog recently, I carved and got a casting square piece last week.
I used this piece as mould to make some silica gel samples. Doing this is one of the ways of translating the lizard skin, including the texture and colors.
These color patterns are all based on my research on the lizard skin. I picked up some parts of the skin, or combine some parts together, to get some color matches.
The most impressed feeling for me is the depression atmosphere while I’m looking at the paintings, feeling I am looking to the landscape through the rough fence.
Meanwhile, I was associating that how did the women of the Greenham Common Peace Camp chained themselves on the fence to resist the nuclear weapons protest.
https://thefenceandtheshadow.wordpress.com/author/sallypayen/page/2/
the paintings were amazing, express the emotion and build the atmosphere of the landscape of protest of nuclear weapon. looking at them could make us keep thinking about what happened there.
Using the artworks to express one’s personal political is a great way to appeal and communicate with other people. In jewellery as well.
Another brilliant thing was we had really nice and deep communication with our tutor Jivan. The truth is being an artist, we need to be always tolerance and to respect other artists from quite different culture backgrounds. And the more we learn about their culture and history, the deep we could understand what they really want to express. Thanks for Arts, which gives us an amazing platform to learn and think about this world.
The sample of the sphere structure I drew was finished yesterday. The result is not bad, I could basically sure about this plan would work, but need to be improved in many aspects.
Analyze this sample, the problem are:
Our MA class had an amazing workshop today. Zoe and Rebecca organized this for us to get more understandings and ideas about our body. It was a good way to think about the relationship between jewellery and body.
We worked as group, each group got same materials: a 20m paper roll and a sticky tape roll. Every group would make a performance in about one hour, with the limited materials we got. The making process and performance were great out of imagination.
As a jewellery maker, when seeing these jewelleries my reaction might be different from other audience who are not in jewellery area. And there are both advantages and disadvantages on this point.
It could be more easily for me to ignore the very first visual feeling and just skip to the observation of the making details, so I need slow down and feel my first impression of a piece of jewellery, then think about what the artist want to express, is that same or different from my first impression, and think about their making process as well.
New technologies have strong influence on contemporary jewellery. When seeing the jewellery which were made years ago but carrying technologies or new materials, I could associate how necessary I should do research on the new technology and materials nowadays. Even it’s hard to get them or apply them soon, technologies still have big opportunities to change peoples habit or create new wearable products. And thats why I want to study on future aesthetics and futurism style, even though the very highest technologies would not be directly used into jewellery, they would change people’s life and way of thinking in different ways, and jewellery should keep up with that on this specific aspect.
Rebecca and Zoe organized a silent auction for our MA students, which helped us to get deep understandings of value.
For the auction, everyone made a piece of jewellery in one and a half hours, then displayed them in the auction. Then everyone give the “Money” (they were actually notes with any amount of money we’d like to mark on) to the 5 pieces of jewellery they would like to buy, with their evaluated price.
The most interesting thing was most of us actually realized that only the jewellery was not enough, we need advertising, good display or a supporting story for our jewellery as well.
Jewellery were valued in different ways. We take precious of a jewellery not only because it’s commercial price, but also the emotional connection we feel, the story that means something and the happiness it could bring us.
Prim Jewellery 