So that’s that, 3rd year assessing is over and I’m very happy with my grades for both the jewellery and the dissertation proposal parts of the course. The Uni year is officially over on May 28th but all I’ll be doing betweeen now and then is bringing home all of my junk.

Over the summer (actually starting now) it’ll be a dissertation frenzy, writing, interviews and research, I want it to be as near completion as possible before September because I’d rather concentrate on jewellery designing/making when I go back for 4th year.

Because I’m going back next year there’s no certificates to be had yet although I technically now have a BDes degree, I’m quite impressed with myself.

Next big thing is the degree show which I’m really looking forward to. There have been a few peeks at some of the 4th years jewellery over the past few days and what I’ve seen looks fantastic, make sure you pay a visit to DoJ to see the show.

Have a great summer

Finally there are two silver ‘Thistle’ brooches etched with a passage of text from the Declaration of Arbroath. One is called ‘Independence’ and signifies the acceptance of the declaration and the recognition of Scotland as an independent country by the Pope. It is pictured in my last post. The second brooch in this pair is pictured below and is called ‘Betrayal’ which signifies the 1707 Act of Union which ended Scottish Independence and brought us under English control.

Other final pieces are the ring exchange project piece, I don’t have a picture of this, a charm master pattern, no picture of this either, which was made for the batch production project and quite a few samples from each of the projects along with ‘source’ samples which I’ll be developing for next year (if I pass this year).

Although there doesn’t seem to be a lot of finished pieces I do have a lot of samples and experimental pieces which are the result of lathe and laser cutter work. I have also worked a lot harder on the dissertation side of things this year and hope that shows in the mark. The dissertation will keep me busy over the summer as will developing my source ideas for next year.

Finally, I’m looking forward to the degree show and wish all the 4th years well, I also hope all the 3rd years get the results they want too

‘mon the referendum

*edit – I forgot to say, I’ve really enjoyed 3rd year, very few negatives, many positives

I’ve been experimenting today with acrylic sheet, copper tube rivets and steel wire.

*Edit – just finished a render of this, the render has silver tubing rather than copper.

First day back at Uni tomorrow and so today is a bit of a rush finalising the summer project so I can turn up with a sketch book and some (eca) degree show postcards. The project (discussed in the last post) has been very helpful because it’s actually shown me where I’m heading, something I haven’t been sure about. I’m really glad to be going back, I’ve missed it.

Thought I’d take the opportunity to post my latest Rhino creation, it’s inspired by car shock absorbers, headlights and radiator hoses. I seem to be getting better at the rendering side of things as well

Part of the project is to start thinking about inspiration, consider what type of jeweller or (I prefer and) what sort of 3D designer I want to be, for example fine art, narrative or conceptual.

This is what all the Rhino stuff has been about lately, I’ve been looking at inspiration and path. Inspiration has, for as long as I can remember, included using stuff that has a defined purpose, out of context, within jewellery applications, an example of that are the bracelets I’ve made from engineering ‘O’ seals. This type of thing also includes using found objects in jewellery, whether the objects are included in the work or the work is modelled from the object, an example being cast silver hearts using a small wooden one I found. I’ve also started to look at large civil engineering constructions as well, hence the Rhino Forth bridges and Eiffel towers, and finally I have to go back to DHTP and look at medical applications for jewellery.

With all this stuff in mind I then have to look at where I’m going and I have to say I’m thinking conceptual, which has surprised me a bit because I’ve never really been a fan of ‘conceptual’ maybe I’m misunderstanding the term but anyway I think my future, or at least a large part of it, lies on the conceptual path. I wonder if it’ll pay the bills?

I’ve been doing a bit of practising with Rhino and the Flamingo renderer plug-in. I’m making some images for my summer project and started off with a model of the Forth rail bridge. The first image is my first attempt using the basic Rhino renderer.

The next image is a slightly different bridge and is rendered with the Flamingo plug-in.