Monday 24 November 2014

Creative thought process


I've never been entirely comfortable using gold colours. Gold tones don't tend to suit me, so it's never been something I naturally reach for when making. I decided it was time I gave it a go so I dug out my Warm Gold colour plated copper wire - real gold is not something to try out new ideas with! 

All the different coloured enamels make the copper slightly different to work with. They might be stiffer, dent easily or be very brittle and difficult to work with. Emerald green in particular is a sod to work with, but has such a bright vivid colour the result is alway worth the frustration and work to get to the finished item. This was the first time I had worked with warm gold and it was an absolute joy to shape! The enamel just seamed to flow with every curve and weave I was giving it. I started forming some quite complex swirling patterns. It was as though the wire was alive in my hands and moving into place all by it's self.

The patterns being formed made me want to make a statement ring to really showcase the movement the wire was capable of. Once made I just had to try it id different colours to see how it would look. And yes, the emerald green was the most difficult on to make!

Medusa rings - including a difficult emerald green

Medusa rings

Having made a few rings, I started thinking that if I flattened the ring out it would make a really nice pendant. So, back to the warm gold coloured wire and again the shapes flowed. But what kind of chain to hang it from? A standard bought chain just didn't seam right for this design. It needed to be something both delicate looking and strong enough to support quite a solid pendant. I also wanted it to be in exactly the same colour as the pendant. A tried out a few different link shapes and stiles of hand made chain but none of them looked quite right. Then I gave a Viking Knit chain with a simple hook and eye clasp a go. Perfect!

Gold coloured Medusa pendant

Again, once I had it working in the warm gold I had to try it out in other colours - although I haven't yet done any viking knit with the emerald green as I'm not looking forward to pulling it through the draw plate!
Line up of Medusa pendants


It's taken a few weeks and lots of hours of work, with plenty of discarded trial runs. But I really enjoyed working through each stage and the end product is definitely worth it!



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