Venation Ring

The images below show a ring with a venation pattern cast in gilding metal.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Wearing the ring.

Bowes, K., (2021). Venation ring.

The ring started off as a collaboration with a Graphic Design student, Courtney Shelly. The collaboration required transferring an image to wax to cast a ring. As a prototype for the collaboration, I tested the transfer technique with my own venation pattern from last year. I decided to cast and clean up the prototype ring so it became a piece for my body of work.

Lost wax casting

 While working at Phil Bear Jewellers I was given the job of doing all of the lost wax castings. We cast a lot at the shop because we have a large range of signet rings and charms that customers can choose from. I also cast for other jewellers that don't have the machinery to cast. Thus I end up casting at least once a week. 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Collection of wax trees.

Bear, L., (2021). Charm collection.

Chains-new plan

I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I realized this while playing with the link textures as the textured pieces started to look like I had been so focused on making chains that I couldn't the links themselves can be used as elements on their own, to generate spin-off. 

My new plan is to clean my current links and remake my mould so that the links needless clean up once casting is done. Thus giving me more time to play with the links in metal. I also want to add a smaller version of my original links to add variations. 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Variation. 

Texturing links

Considering the feedback I received I wanted to give my links a reason for being cast instead of making them each out of wire. I thought adding texture to the links and redoing the mould would give the links a reason for being cast. 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Textured links.

Death and life

 "Eventually, all living things die. And except in very rare cases, all of those dead things will rot. But that’s not the end of it. What rots will wind up becoming part of something else,"(Kowalski, 2014). Thus creating life cycles, "life would end without rot," in other words decay promotes growth which is implied by my sculpture as it looks as though the plant is growing out of the vertebrae. The sculpture occurred through the serendipity of taking a photo of my castings last year that I hoped would evolve into a wearable piece.

Bowes, K.,(2020). Instagram photo of sculpture.

Kowalski, K., 2014. Recycling the dead. [online] Science News for Students. Available at: <https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/recycling-dead> [Accessed 21 October 2021].

Sunflower studs

Figure 1 shows my smallest sunflower that was cast in sterling silver and figure 2 shows another set of the same sunflowers but they are attached to teardrop links from my organic chain.

Figure 2- Bowes, K.,(2021), Sunflowers on teardrops.

Figure 1 -Bowes, K.,(2021), Sunflower studs.

Knowing that I have a mould of my smallest cast sunflower, I thought they would be the perfect size to make small studs for the I heart market and my website.

The studs are small, as seen in Figure 1, but they take up most of the lobe when worn. Therefore it is difficult for people with multiple lobe piercings to wear another pair of earrings next to the sunflowers.  I attached the sunflower to a teardrop link, as seen in figure 2, which should allow for a second earring to be worn.

Consolidation

I took a look at all the casting bits and pieces I had lying around and grouped them according to what I would like them to be once they are completed.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Pendants.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Neckpieces.

Bowes, K.,(2021).Earrings.

Sunflower moulds

Whilst I made the mould of my chain links I also made mould of my sunflower elements.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Flower in mould.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Half flower in mould.

Chain

All my links have been cast so now I can play with color and placement. I think I cast enough links to possibly make two chains. 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Cast links.

Casting links

The wax injecting took a while for the links as I had issues with the pressure but I managed to make three trees and cast them in brass, copper, and silver.

The wax and the casting both looked like flowers which reiterate my point that I used these shapes as they are the basic shapes of most petals.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Wax tree of links.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Silver links.

Chain links

Now to cut off the sprues and make some moulds so I can start putting my chains together.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Chain links.

Wax links

As a slight distraction from my platinum prototyping, I rolled some wax to shape the links for my organic chains.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Wax links.

Casting links

Bowes, K., (2021). Cast links. 

Links cast at Phil Bear jewelers. The links were cut open before the mould was made. The deformed ends happened during casting and added time to the assembling of the chain. 

Note to self, for my organic chains, make a mould of closed links to prevent this from happening. 

Patterned ring

 When I did my collaboration with Courtney I wasn't sure how to mark out her design on the wax rings so I did this ring as a test with my photocopied leaf skeleton pattern.  I forgot about this ring but I recently came across it and realised I still want to finish it for my portfolio.

Bowes, K., (2021). Marking the patter

Bowes, K., (2021). Pattern marked out on the wax

Bowes, K., (2021). The ring just cut off the wax tree

Smaller sunflower

 The smaller flower I originally made was still too large for the earpiece hence why I redesigned it with the element rather than the whole flower. I still wanted to attempt making a very small flower that can be used for earrings, I managed but it was difficult not to squash it while working. 

The half sunflower cast exactly how I thought it would and I am very happy with how it came out. The small flower needs more cleaning up than I thought it would but at least it wasn't a complete disaster. I will definitely be making moulds of these two pieces as they could easily be used to make multiple pieces for the market.

Bowes, K., (2021). Elements for casting.

Bowes, K., (2021). Cast half flower and small flower

Flower elements

I made a mould of my large and medium flowers and started injecting wax into them. Not all the flowers came out as a full flower but that is normal with a new mould. Instead of wasting the large flower that can't be used in my original design, I started to see the flower as an element that can be broken into smaller elements instead of used as a whole. 

Bowes, K., (2021). Mould making

 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Sunflower element.

Cast Sunflowers

I cast the large sunflower but once the petals were attached. Unfortunately the Fibonacci pattern was lost. I was sceptical about the size of the first flower as I thought it would be far too large for my original earpiece design therefore I made a smaller flower which I also cast but left the centre blank. I want to make a mould of both the flowers so I can work with them in wax again to find the best pattern or texture for the centre of the flowers. 

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax sunflower.

Bowes, K., (2021). Cast flowers.

Organic Chain

I have been preparing to cast links for a chain at Phil Bear Jewellers and I have contemplated making my own organic chain. Drawing each link can be tiring but my Art Flow app upgraded and I am able to make my own 'brushes' so drawing the chain is so much easier. It means I can draw multiple designs in a short amount of time.

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax tree of links.

Sunflower Center

 For the center of my sunflower, I didn't want to leave it blank. I also didn't want to just texture it either as I know that sunflowers do actually follow the Fibonacci sequence. 

I wanted a stipple texture on the center of my wax flower so I printed a Fibonacci Spiral (Fig. 1) to scale and used the transfer method I came up with while working with Cortney to mark the dots on the wax. 

Bowes, K.,(2021). Stipple Pattern

Figure1- Fibonacci Spiral

At first glance, the dots look randomly placed but they do follow the Fibonacci spiral, I drew over my photo to make sure as it can be difficult for the eye to pick it up.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Illustration on photo

Experimenting in Wax

 Using my drawing and photos for reference, I attempted to make my first sunflower out of wax. I used the blue carving wax for stability and the black modeling wax so that I could sculpt each petal individually.

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax experiment.

Bowes, K., (2021). Sculpted Petals.