Fan earrings completed

These are punched copper earrings with a blue green patina and criss-crossing silver wires with reference to patterns from shwe-shwe fabric. The shepherd’s hooks are silver with a simplified copper element to ‘marry’ the copper and silver
These were made a while after the platinum shwe-shwe earrings. I made them in copper so I could apply a blue green patina for colour and give them a slightly more casual appeal to that of the platinum or silver earrings. I have abstained from using the spiral shepherds hooks and created better proportions in terms of the ratio of the wires to the fan element.

Fan earrings 14

In this picture I have soldered silver wire to the fan element, this is just a prototype to see how the silver wire will look with the copper once it has been coloured with the blue-green patina, the silver will give it a more precious appeal.

Fan earrings 13

Here is the final variation, I preferred this more to the previous one but needs more developing as the proportions are strange.

Fan earrings 12

This was another playful variation, I quite liked the geometric lines that are formed by the cris-crossing wires.

Fan earrings 11

I think this is the most successful variant which is the same as the previous one but with a ring on the top. There is something about this design that I really like, it has a mystical feel the way the wires meander and twirl amongst each other and somewhat represents a mothering angelic figure. I will be working with and developing this design.

Fan earrings 10

In this variation I have used two separate wires which intersect and meet at a point, I prefer the pointed tip to the rounded tip in the previous variation.

Fan earrings 9

Here I have widened the loop which creates an appealing effect which somewhat resembles a fan-tailed fish shape.

Fan earrings 8

In this experiment decided for interest’s sake to cut the wires. This seems to give it a more finished look.

Fan earrings 7

I placed the wound wire from the large fan shape to see the effect it would have which I found quite interesting as it had a more elongated appearance. The wires extruded from the ends unintentionally but also had an interesting appeal to it.

Fan earrings 6

In this picture the wires happened to land in this position whilst I was placing them onto the smaller size fan. I felt that it looked really interesting so I wanted to draw from this arrangement.

Fan earrings 5

This prototype I sunk the looped wire to apply the Golden mean proportion to it which also created a more visually pleasing affect in comparison with the previous prototype.

Fan earrings 4

In this photo I coiled the wire twice around a mandrel which seemed more successful but looked a bit like a safety pin.

Fan earrings 3

This was the next step, I decided to use one continual wire where I created a loop at the top instead of soldering the two wires together. I found the loop looked too narrow and disproportional.

Fan eaarrings 2

I then decided to bring the Golden mean into the proportion as I am working with sacred geometry, so I worked out the proportions in terms of the length of wire touching the fan to the length of the wire running to the tip where the two wires meet. When compared to the previous wire length I find this one much more visually pleasing and proportional.

Fan earrings1

These are the earrings that I made in platinum for the anglo plat competition, I have decided to make them in copper as well as silver. They have a rustic African feel to them and I thought that by making them in copper and patinating them into a turquoise blue, it would further accentuate the Rustic feel.
This photo shows my first thought patterns as to the wire that I wanted to solder to the ‘fans’ so they can be hung from a shepherds hook.

Playing around with shapes

These were just some pictures I took of the shwe-shwe elements. I placed them in different positions to see the interraction between them and to see what other ideas could spring from them.