By this time a lot of you have been with us long enough to confidently say we know how to make jewellery now. But are you stumped when it comes to conjuring up original designs? Do you find yourself inspired by your travels, your home surroundings, something you read or saw, but then find your mind blank when you’re at the bench? A great skill for any maker, no matter what stage of your jewellery journey you are at, is learning how to identify and explore your inspirations, and how to wrangle your thoughts and visual influences into a well designed piece of jewellery. Every jeweller should have a sketchbook to hand, and we’re introducing a new class to help show you what a useful tool that can be! You don’t have to be great at drawing – scrapbooking found images, collecting textures, note-taking, collage, and even the most scrappy of doodles can all help to record your thoughts. But how to transform these musings into a piece of beautifully designed jewellery, I hear you ask?
We’re delighted to introduce a new class to help you demystify the design process. We’ll run this new one day class as an optional addition to your course, where you will learn how to design your jewellery, from collecting initial inspiration, through the research and development process, and finally onwards toward a formalised design outcome.
This course will be fun and dynamic, beginning with brainstorming your own personal interests and inspirations, then working with paper and found materials to explore processes of repetition, mirroring, form to create samples. You will be guided every step of the way, and encouraged to explore your inner creativity to translate these initial ideas into finished designs. You don’t need to be ‘good at art’ to enjoy the design process! An open approach to making mistakes and group participation are more important. The goal of this new course is to produce a body of thematically linked, considered design ideas to take through to your jewellery-making practice. As always, we’ll explore ethical and sustainable approaches to making Forward planning is a great way to build sustainability into your work – we’ll talk about your choice of materials, exploring sustainable alternatives to help you come up with an economical, ethical, and beautiful design.
All are welcome, from complete beginners (get in there early with those good design habits!) to seasoned jewellers. Keep checking the workshop schedule for upcoming dates!
