A few memories from my recent travels

Poland: Krakouw

In the mountains

Krakouw is a city in Poland which is full of history.

Above is the old city centre of krakouw and it is one of the biggest medieval square's in Europe.

Above is Auschwitz- A concentration camp.

London: site seeing

The Gold smith's company in St Pauls London

Taking the escilator at the tube station I was reading the adverts and saw an advert for an exhibition called "Mindfull of Silver"

I followed the directions which led to a beautiful old building where the exhibition was held. For this exhibition the goldsmiths had been given a topic of "vessel" and the exhibition showed their design process and how the silversmith got to the final piece. What I found the most fascinating was how each artist was given the same theme but not one of them's work was alike in any visual way.

If you go to this link you can see a few of the silversmith's works from the exhibition: http://http://www.modernsilver.com/mindfulofsilver/mindfulofsilver.htm

There were two silversmith's work that I engaged with : Lucian Taylor and Theresa Nguyen ( my next 2 blog posts will be about their work)

anglo gold continued......

Using the three dimensional Hydrangea silver ring as a design start for this bold and sleek category for anglo Gold.

Anglo Gold

There have been many competitions and exhibitions that have been on and i have been adapting my work or adapting the brief to fit into my work.

The first one was anglo plat. Because of the 2 entries required (an accesory and a statement piece) I had to pick wisely the theme so that I could carry on using my hydrangeas in my entries as the hydrangeas are still the area that I am working on in my own work.

I chose dual purpose for a statement piece and I chose accessory for bold and sleek.

For dual purpose I developed on sopmething similar I have designed before but changed it and improved it. It is a neck piece that turns into a hand piece.

here was the process....

Started off with this idea but the flowers needed to wrap more around the hand- needed to be more of a "statement piece"

This was the start of the piece around the neck. Not bold enough!

So i added more layers to it and this fuller feel was more what I was trying to achieve.

This picture below was when I tried to cover the neck more with the links and flowers but I feel the flowers look spare and there is not enough shape to complement the neck line.

I have been enjoying this process of designing by making a prototype and putting it together, then adjusting it etc and taking photo's on ther body to see what it looks like.

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hydrangea petals

I tapped some hydrangea leaves onto petals I had cut out of the silver in a hydrangea shape and whilst I was playing around I made a little hydrangea angle. I was goign to set a tiny gem stone in the middle of circle but off centre. I was just having fun but i feel I could take this idea further some how.

soldiers continued

so my next plan has been to make these soldiers in a cold silicone mould so that the plastic of the soldier is not melted or distorted in the hot silicone mould. I put a sprue on the soldiers and mixed the silicone, followed the process and let it set for as day. I only cut open one of the moulds as the inside of it was still tacky so i left the others for monday. I was very pleased with the little wax soldier that came out after I injected

little people... continued

I have been thinking about and creating these little people for a long time after casting them in second year. I have filed 1 or 2 out of metal but this is quite a process althought they do look like little people near the end result but I think I am going to try make them out of wax. I did do some omore moulds of them where I actually put the plastic people in the silicone and made a hot silicone mould of them but a few melted whilst some of them worked. I think the main factor that makes them look so convincing like miniture little people is the poaint that shows their cloths and creates more definition.

casting soldiers

So I have been thinking of and experimenting with ways to get my soldiers into wax so that they can be cast. The first option I tried was putting then straight onto a wax tree and investing them straight but in the back of my mind I did wonder whether or not the plastic would effect the silver cast soldiers because in second year when I cast my little people the residue of the plastic left an ugly texture on the cast. Unfortunately both casts of my soldiers ahd the plastic residue left on them and therefore have porosity. Not to worry tho< beacuse i will use them in the right context and the porosity will stand a purpose. But for now I need to create alot of soldiers without porosity- so it is off to the cold silicone molds I go!

Mooi Loop Exhibition

I have used Mooi Loop's tree as a reference to create my own tree's that show the seasons

Some of the treesI have made with lots of leaves some with just a few branches, some blowing in the wind with bent trunks....

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Mooi Loop Exhibition

Carrying on with the theme of fragility and transience of life, I am looking into other metaphors that can portray this theme.

For the Mooi Loop Exhibition I want to create my own version of Vet Kat's tree drawings and I would like each tree to be a season. These tree's will be metaphors for the cycle of life and the changings of the seasons which shows transience.

hydrangea pendent

I created this pendent and wanted to get a feeling of lots of hydrangea elements forming a circle. Im not completely satisfied with this pendent. I feel that the feeling/ look of it from far is what I wanted to caputre but from close there are many things that i am not satisfied with! some of these things are: 1. The flowers look too bent up or "raw". There needs to be something common running through them, for example a texture or dome the shape of each flower. Chris suggested dome each flower and then ben the petals in their own direction. b) I am not sure about how the flowers are attached to the circle that makes up the pendent.

anyway... I do like the feel of the pendent from far and that is what I am looking for but now I just need to work out how to create that feeling but from close still have the piece looking just as good from far! I think I actually am more fond of the back of the pendent than the front.

I have made a little tube setting for a tiny purple amethyst stone to be sat in the middle of the one flower. I want to take this idea further with incorporating tiny gem stones into my work, similar to my water droplet idea where the little blue topaz cabs i bought and moonstone cabs become water droplets on the leaves and petals I create. Not sure if I showed any photo's of this idea. It was a long time ago so I will have to go find the photos and put them up if I have not put them up long ago.

Glamour May 2011- SA

I was so excited when I found a picture of my bracelet in the glamour magazine for this month. It reminds me about the comments I got form the viewers that interacted with my jewellery when I was at design indaba in march. Most people either said, "so delicate" or "pretty" and about 5 even said " hydrangea's". I also remember a few saying "so feminine". some times after you have worked with piece's of your own jewellery for a long time you not sure how to comment on it or what other people think it looks like, so i was interested to see people's responses.

I called myself my full name Michelle Robyn and left my surname out, but then I was not sure if I should have put my surname instead of full name. I came to the decision that I will stick with michelle Robyn and thank goodness for that because it is all on my business cards that i got printed before design indaba. Anyways was just thinking about it.....

Little cast hydrangeas

I cast these little hydrangeas and am really satisfied with the out come. you might not be able to see the detail from the photo but from up close the detail (the veins and other detail) is very clear. You have to back the flowers up with wax before you cast them!

My hydrangeas and army men met

there was a bit of tension...

I really like the shadows created by the hydrangeas as you can see in the picture above, I could do something with the shapes of that shadow!

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Valley of a thousand Hills

I spotted these hydrangeas on the way to lunch at the pot and kettle in valley of a thousand hills.






There were masses of them and the ones I picked were bright purple with blue in them, the flowers were small and waxy which made them easier to cast.

A lady at the design indaba in cape town had a long chat with me about flowers. She was on the flower association board for SA. She did many competitions of flower aranging and knew alot about flowers so I took the opportunity and asked her about the hydrangea flower. She looked at my electroformed hydrangea flowers and told me that she could see that I was picking the flowers too late, as in the middle of the flower there was a point where the little bud use to be. She said the perfect picking time was when the flower had a little ball in the middle of it and the tiny little flower that came out of that ball opened once picked and would fall off when the flower was old and this left a pointed middle behind, like in my electroformed hydrangeas.