More messing around. I like the idea of drilling holes to reveal the contrast beneath the surface. In this case the pendant is made of 6 layers of different colours. The further down I drilled, the more concentric layers of colour were revealed. I think there’s some possibilities here but the photograph doesn’t show the detail well unfortunately. The pendant isn’t finished yet and needs some sanding and buffing. Work in progress.
drilled pendant
After sanding and drilling, the beads are almost ready to be strung. But first the little darlings need three coats of varnish to protect them from knocks and daily wear and tear. It takes several hours for them to dry out between coats. Here’s one way of keeping them captive while they dry.
Another weekend in inner London when the sun refused to show itself. The weather man got it wrong yet again. So there was no excuse for not getting on with two commissions I have to finish soon. It was also a chance to experiment with a couple of ideas as well. I’ve always meant to try carving and drilling beads to reveal the colours underneath. I had a go at these two beads with a drill bit and then a countersink to make conical holes.
Too many holes !
As you can see I got a bit carried away and made rather more holes than was necessary. But I quite like the effect and the shape of the holes. If the beads were made of concentric layers of different contrasting colours, the layers would show through the holes clearly like a pattern. And of course the beads would be even lighter to wear… I’ll have to revisit this and make a necklace based on the idea some time.
One piece that I did manage to finish without wrecking it was this brooch and earring set. I used pearl-ex white powder on light blue polymer clay to get a pearlescent finish. It worked much better on light blue than dark blue for some reason. I’m quite pleased with the effect . I think I’ll try to use these powders in my work more often. Now all I need to do is to finish the commissions….
Pearlesecent brooch and earrings
