Showing posts with label process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label process. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Method in the Madness


I was flipping through my workbook last night when I came across this. Although I didn't date this entry, as you can tell by the heading (if you can read my handwriting - my mother claims it hasn't improved since I was about seven), these were my preliminary sketches for entries in the first Bead Star contest held last year. I thought this was a pretty clear illustration of my design method, so I thought I'd share it with you. Now, sometimes, I just get out the bead board and start playing with shapes and colors of beads, without doing any preliminary sketching, but I often find this the most efficient way to design my pieces.

At the time I drew this, I owned a strand of center-drilled keishi pearls and a variety of loose freshwater pearls and that's about it. I had never made a medallion shaped-dragon heart pendant or related clasp at that point but thought it would be interesting to try. (This is kind of embarrassing, but I had also never wire-wrapped a horizontally drilled teardrop-shaped bead, either - I had been creating jewelry for less than a year at that point - but that's a different issue. I often find that my designs are more ambitious than my limited technical skills, but I feel that it keeps me on my toes. And you never know what you can do until you try, right?)

As you can see by my notes, I felt that a drop-shaped bead would work well dangling at the bottom of the focal, but I didn't have an idea at that time what kind of bead I might be able to use. With this draft in mind, I went shopping during a local bead show and found some nice faceted onyx drops. (And I opened my copy of Stringing to the basic skills section, and learned how to wire-wrap them. Ahem.) I also found a larger faceted round onyx bead to string immediately above the dragon heart pendant. In the end, the piece turned out like this:


As you can see, the over-sized drops I found didn't need any further embellishment (and I only needed three of them), and I changed the clasp from a toggle to a button (and fiddled with the scale of the pendant). However, overall, the design came out pretty similar to the initial concept, right? In this case, using a preliminary sketch helped me focus the design more quickly and streamlined the whole process.

Of course, it doesn't always turn out this smoothly - you can probably also see a partial sketch of one of my double koi pendants on that page. That necklace design didn't quite work out for me, and I never completed it. Still, putting the concept down on paper first helped me determine that I didn't want to take the process further with that particular piece.

Oh, and how did I do with my entry? Well, I did make the finals last year, but I didn't end up placing. This piece ultimately appeared in the Winter 2009 issue of Stringing, instead. However, if you are not already aware - Bead Star 2009 is underway! Go here for more details.

Thanks for visiting.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Now for Something a Little Different (Finally)


I've had real problems with time allocation these past months. I only have 1-2 hours maximum to work on jewelry / beading at night (sometimes less, depending on what's going on at home), after the Short One is in bed. I've found lately that most of that time has been eaten up with creating new finished jewelry and putting together project proposals for publication (and adminstrative stuff). While I've elaborated on bead designs I created earlier this year, I haven't really found time to do more than jot down ideas for new beads. I've found it a little frustrating. I decided the other night to just push everything aside and spend a little time trying to come up with something new.

I really love medieval bestiaries, which are basically compilations of animals, with illustrations and descriptions of each "beast". These lists throw together what we would consider both mundane and fantastic creatures - so, you might find snakes, owls, manticores and basilisks in the same manuscript, for example. The illustrations in the bestiaries are wonderful - relatively simple drawings but full of character. (If you are interested, you can view a few of these illustrations in the Wikipedia entry for bestiaries.)

So I chose this subject as a starting point - I decided to try to create a modern design of a mythical creature with similar clean, simple lines. I ended up attempting a gryphon, a beast which is half eagle and half-lion. I took a few liberties with the way I interpreted the combination of forms, though. This is kind of embarrassing, but I'm going to show you a few of my initial notebook sketches for the design. Once again, bear in mind that I don't have formal training and this stuff doesn't come easily to me:


(Don't laugh, okay? Oh, and in case you are wondering, the yellow crayon marks are the SO's attempt to improve my design. We are nothing if not consummately professional, here.) The first draft is the largest image in the center - the progression is counter-clockwise from there. Despite some problems with the legs, I decided that the overall design was workable. (Don't ask me why I put a peacock crest of top - I can't really explain it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.) However, the image was four inches across - suitable for a breastplate maybe, but not a pendant. The top right image was the second try - still too big, and I was still having trouble with the hind leg. I broke down and looked up a couple photos of lions on the Internet at this point. Third try is at top left - size is about right, and I finally resolved my issues with the hind leg. However, after shrinking down the design, I felt that there was too much detail - the design seemed too cluttered. Also, I lost the glaring eye, which was a feature I wanted to retain. Fourth and final try is at bottom left - size is about right, and eliminating some of the detail around the breast simplifies the overall look and makes it feel sharper (at least, to me).

I liked number four, and that's the version I ended up carving out as a stamp. It's still a hefty pendant - at about 2" in diameter, it's as large as I'm likely to go for a single piece. However, I think it will be pretty easy to create a substantial necklace (the kind I like, after all) out of it. If I do this again (which I may - the gryphon was one of three options for mythical beasts that I considered before starting), I'll probably make the pose a little more dramatic. I deliberately avoided the segreant posture that you find in so many heraldic depictions of gryphons (rearing up on the hind legs, facing to the left), but the standing image is a just a touch static.

Anyway, so there you have it: my first really new pendant design since the spring - and a little exposition on my personal design process.

Thanks for visiting!