Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Second Generation Drawing Brooches...

Last week I shared a project that I was working on.  You can see the first generation Drawing Brooches HERE.  I loved the concept of bridging my jewelry with my artwork and wanted to take it to the next step.

In the first generation, I kept everything pretty much on the same scale.  In the second one, I played around.  Some of the pieces are zoomed in on or off to the side.  I hope to play around with this even more, doing close-ups of eyes or mouths.

One of the biggest evolutions of these pieces is the lack of uniformity.  In the first generation, I felt that there was a sort of sameness throughout.  Seen independently, I think they're like little jewels, but collectively, there was a "too polished" or "too produced" look about them.  That mainly had to do with the crisp rectangles and even sizing.  So with the second generation I "messed things up" a little.  I roughly cut the sheet metal and drilled random patterns along the edges to give them a lace-like effect.

Another big step forward was working with color.  The first generation had a classy, sepia tone and a vintage vibe.  I liked that look, but I wanted to infuse some color and used alcohol inks, Gilder's Paste and acrylic paints to jazz things up.  I was careful to mute the tones and work in layers to preserve some of the integrity of the drawings and to keep it from becoming too technicolor.

I also distressed and abused the surfaces of the pendant brooches a little.  I think this is the first time that I've ever actually wanted to incorporate resin with air bubbles.  It gives the pieces a little bit of texture and breaks away from the sanded, smooth finish of the first generation.

I'm really happy with the pieces.  I think they turned out nicely and have lots of character.

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