Digital sketch

 This is the adapted earring I have been working towards for the platinum. It entails a tapered wire and the epoxy skeleton leaf. I will decide as I work if I am going to add the smaller leaf veins like I did for my mesh prototyes or not; weight dependant.

(This drawing was done using ArtFlow and is just a sketch of what I have in mind)

Bowes, K., (2021). Digital earring sketch.

More chain designs

 I did a few more chain designs as I was having so much fun creating new brushes. Like the marquis, I often use a teardrop shape as the basis of drawing stylised flower petals. So for my second design, I used a teardrop shape. 

Bowes, K., (2021). Teardrop chains

I thought the 'butterfly wing' shape, that I used for my brooch for platinum last year, would be an interesting organic shape to use for an element/link.

Bowes, K., (2021). Butterfly wing chain.

The best part about Artflow is the ability to overlap the brushes I made to have some chains that are a mix of the three links I started with.

Bowes, K., (2021). Mixed chains

Booklets

I printed my chain drawings and folded them into mini booklets. I was hoping to print on my handmade paper but the off white paper was too thick for the printer.

Video of how to fold the booklet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHa6kR2SZok

Bowes, K., (2021). Booklets

Bowes, K., (2021). Folded booklets

Metal Leaf skeletons

 After deciding to use the wire mesh I started playing with the mesh to see what interesting forms I could make. The forms reminded me of the natural skeleton leaves that I found.

Bowes, K., (2021). Aluminum mesh form.

Bowes, K., (2021). Leaf forms

Layering Elements

Playing with the elements of the two sunflowers I ended up layering the petals so the piece has depth. I realized the layered piece would fit well with the curve of the top of the ear so I drew the piece and inserted it into the original design.

Bowes, K., (2021). Layered Elements

Bowes, K., (2021). Redesigned earpiece

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.

Mass Designing

 Using my customized Art Flow brush I mass-produced designs by changing the settings and adding different elements. 

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.

Wax Realisations

 When looking at my wax and my reference I came to some realisations that influenced my work. 

For the petals, I needed to have more than just a single layer of petals as sunflowers have lots of petals closely packed. The petals on a sunflower also don't appear to be attached to the center when viewed from the front so when I attached the petals I did it from the back. The blue wax was quite stringy so I will need to clean up the back once it is cast. 

The center needed to be hollowed out to reduce weight for casting. I am unsure about the stipple texture that I might add more dots or add a texture over the stippling as there is so much space between the dots but I want to see how it will look in metal before deciding.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Incomplete wax flower.

Bowes, K.,(2021). Back of flower.

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

Fibonacci Spiral

The Fibonacci sequence is a mathematical series of numbers that is also known as the Golden Ratio:0,1,1,2,3,5,8 (Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2). The sequence creates a spiral(the golden angle) that occurs frequently in nature and can be seen in pineapples, waves, shells, etc. 

 Fibonacci numbers/spiral in nature

 

The Fibonacci Spiral is also found in the seeds of sunflowers as the spiral allows for the maximum amount of seeds while still having the seeds spaced evenly.

Sunflowers' Spiral Secret

 

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.

Sunflower earring design

My original design was inspired by a set of detailed ceramic tiles. I originally designed an earpiece using the tiles as a reference but I used a generic flower. I redesigned the earpiece using the image of a sunflower I grew as a reference.

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower Illustration

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower earpiece

Earring illustration

I have been helping at Phil Bear Jewellers with building wax trees and cleaning up castings. While working I came across these small flower castings that inspired me to illustrate the earring/earpiece that I observed within the floral tiles. The illustration was done on a tablet using ArtFlow.

Bowes, K., (2021). Flower casting

Bowes, K., (2021). Illustration

Floral Tiles

Bathroom tiles that I keep saying look like an earring/earpiece. I also love how the floral image looks almost like a watercolour painting with a pen used for detailing.

Bowes.K., (2021). Bathroom tiles grid image

Bowes.K., (2021). Single tile