One of a kind Mandala neckpiece

This is a neckpiece I have been working on in the past few days, frantically trying to finish before my jewellery gets examined for my B Tech portfolio.

I had created a few of these seperate Mandala elements which I was going to make into seperate pendants but I wanted to create a real exhibition 'show piece'.

I had an idea to make something like this and sketched it onto paper. After some thought I decided to go ahead and make this neckpiece which I felt was quite brave as I had a very limited amount of time to make it but I decided to just put my head down and do it. I am really glad that I did make it as I feel the outcome was really successful.

I feel that this piece epitomises my 'One of a kind' theme as each Mandala is different from the next; although some bear the same pattern there are still slight variations.

Rose window Mandala test piece in silver (first)

This was one of the first test pieces I created, it has been enameled which is what I plan to do to with these Mandalas when they're all ready and completed. I wasn't entirely happy with the punching, I think it may be due to the vast spacing between the punches and I also created this piece before I custom made the punches that I wanted to use specifically for these designs so this piece gave me an idea of the type of punches that I needed to make.

Rose window Mandala test pieces in silver

These are test pieces with different design variations of Rose windows, I have punched them from silver which has a much more successful outcome than than aluminium. There are still more to come as I have many different designs in my head that I still want to create, I am finding the success of these designs to be very exciting and motivating which is giving me many ideas for the jewellery I want to make from them.

Rose windows

These are some beautiful Rose windows from the Chartres and Strasbourg cathedrals, they are some of the windows I have based by designs on.

Rose window Mandala test pieces

These are some test pieces I have been working on, they are based on Rose window patterns. They are not exactly the same as the windows due to the fact that they are punched with different shaped punches which I have custom made specifically for this project. It was difficult working out how to arrange the punches as they are simple shapes such as square, marquise, circle and teardrop, where the rose windows contain complex shapes which would be difficult to shape the punches into, it would have been much easier to pierce out the patterns but I like the 'embossed' effect that punches create.

These photos are of my first aluminium test pieces, I don't really like the way the aluminum looks and reacts to the punching so I have continued by making them in Silver

Rose Window Mandala bracelet

I am in the process of making a bracelet which will form part of a set for my Rose Window Mandala jewellery. There are a few issues which have arisen and are delaying me from finishing it. The main problem is that the enamel becomes dark and dull when placed on the arm whereas with the earrings the light was allowed to shine through and illuminate the colours.
This brought me to a few options I can either use a backing plate or enamel the back white.

Harmony

I created these earrings using one of the elements from the experimental punching of test pieces using my newly discovered technique of ‘pierce punching’. I came across this pattern called the flower of life or creation pattern, I had seen a lot of jewellery made with this motif but it had merely been pierced out from plate and I thought it was such a special and interesting pattern that I wanted to render it in a unique and appealing way. I thought that my punching method would be the perfect way in which to portray it. The result was deeply rewarding and I felt that this special element needed a distinctive shepherds hook to compliment it so I used the same concept as the shwe-shwe earrings which was the forged spiral but this time I used thicker wire which resulted in a more prominent taper. To finish it off I left the FOL element an acid white which gave it an essence of purity I then burnished the protruding petals to create an eye-catching sparkle as the light reflected from the pattern. I was really attracted to this design so I designed a collection of jewellery around it.

Punching Patterns

These were some test pieces I made whilst exploring my new found technique of punch piercing and sacred geometry patterns.
I was very pleased with this new technique and around about this time I had started my investigations with sacred geometry. I came across a very alluring pattern called the flower of life, which up until this time I had struggled to find a way in which to render it in metal without using the likely method of piercing or etching. When I came across this technique I thought of how I could use it to portray this pattern. I then realised that it was made up either of overlapping circles or connecting marquise shapes, this is what brought me to use a marquise shaped punch to render the pattern.