Done and dusted!

All my hard work is finally over and has paid off. We presented our Narrative project yesterday and it was really nice going round every ones pieces and seeing how other people had interpreted there theme. Everyone piece looked really good....you can really see where some people might be going for forth year...where as me, I'm still baffled. Its really scary to think that forth year is coming in so quickly. Hopefully ill be able to pull it out the bag like i have done for third your. Above is the brooche i made for this project and this is my artist statement...

Nicola Wyllie – Life after death

My three brooches have been hugely influenced by the theme of ‘Life after death’ where I focused on using mainly Victorian mourning jewellery as my source material, as well as looking into the sense of touch.

I wanted to create a piece that kept the traditional style and theme of Victorian jewellery but also incorporate a form or texture that could enhance the wearers sense of touch. I focused on using the traditional shape and form of Victorian jewellery by using the oval, which is widely seen in Victorian jewellery, and including layers of fine chain. To create the wearers sense of touch I developed the idea of the skins reaction to touch, which led me to try and create a texture that represented Goosebumps. I did this by centre punching a design on very thin silver sheet, which gave the silver an almost brail affect. I wanted to make these designs very fragile looking, so I kept the white finish on the silver, instead of polished finish. I also wanted to create a soft texture, which would tickle the skin and in theory give the wearer Goosebumps. To achieve this I used thin, soft gold thread, which I loosely stitched into the silver. I liked the look and feel of the stitching so much that I decide to combine my layers of silver sheet by stitching them together, rather than just riveting them.


.....this piece is the one that i got picked to be presented, with 5 other girls pieces, to a retiring lecturer as a gift. We find out on Tuesday who's piece he picked and whoever wins a nice little bungle of cash (well £50, that buys a few drinks lol). And below is two other brooches that are slightly simpler.






It was also Sally, one of our part-time tutors, last day. I think all the girls are really gonna miss the big help that she has been this year. But she off to do bigger, brighter things :)

Had a bit of bad news this week with my job. I thought that because I'm a student the recession wouldn't affected me...but i was wrong. My hours at work are being cut, so iv been on the job hunt the past week, but I'm thinking i should put my craft into practice and take the scary decision to create my Etsy page. Iv been putting it off for the past year and i don't know why. So I'm gonna make a start on some new piece and see how it goes down and if it doesn't work, i haven't really lost anything.

Off for a well deserved lazy night :D x