I’ve been experimenting with opacity levels in materials trying to get a resin/glass effect. This is the best I’ve come up with so far. It’s based on a ring a niece broke (half the shank off) and asked me to fix (a year ish ago).

This image is a step forward for me because I’ve started to experiment with the settings in the Flamingo renderer plug-in so I get get closer to photo-real rendering. In this image I’ve used a texture map on the groundplane and a real cityscape for environment relections and also experimented with bounce lights to get highlights on the model. There’s also some post render Photoshop manipulation to add some stronger sky-blue.

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

The colour one (the brief stated we use colour, acrylic and/or resin) resulted in me going back to an old favourite, the De Stijl movement, and in particular Mondrian. At first I designed and made a bangle from acrylic, set with resin, but wasn’t happy with the end result so went for a much simpler brooch. Below are a couple of development pages from my sketchbook and then a couple of pictures of the finished bangle and brooch

In the end I really enjoyed this project and think that acrylic and resin will play a large part in my work next year.

It’s been a while so I thought I’d make my last post of 2009. We’re all on holiday from Uni now, not due back ’til 17th January when the reviews of semester one work take place (17th & 18th) .

Our final semester one project was based around colour and acrylic/resin. It hasn’t been a project I’ve enjoyed much, things haven’t gone well, some of the properties of acrylic and resin have taken a bit of getting used to. There has been a lot of trial and error but I think the final piece (Ver 2.0) will work. Pictures in the new year.

Our next project is a narrative project and we’ve been given a list of potential subjects and have to produce a brooch. Quite a few of them appeal to me but I am going for ‘Scottish Identity’.

2010 may be the year I get to vote for something a bit closer to my Scottish Identity so I thought that it would be fitting to go with that. If I don’t get to vote then I suppose the brooch will be a tribute to the year democracy got screwed over by a bunch of gutless MSPs.

Well thats 2009 blogging done and dusted, seasons greetings to everyone and good luck in 2010.

We finished this project today by giving a presentation on the designer we were allocated (see previous post) and showing the final piece we designed and made which was inspired by the research.

Here are pictures of my final piece(s). All of them are acrylic with some rivits or steel wire as required.