Bella's Experiments

Hi Everyone
Following on from last Tuesday, Bella has started to experiment with her first Make It jewellery kit. The kit has an initial warm up exercise as a starting point to the project. Five different coloured clay pieces are included in the kit and there are five little experiments (with instructions) to make surface pattern designs. The designs are made with everyday items including a toothpick and a paperclip. Bella has also been asked to find other items which may produce interesting designs. Here are her five initial surface patterns using her clay and tools.



Bella's tools.



Five examples of Bella's experimental surface patterns.



Ultimately, the kit is aiming to produce a specific item ie a Doughnut Necklace, however, the warm up exercise is about understanding the characteristics of the clay and trying out pleasing surface patterns to enhance the final necklace.
Here is a quick look at samples of the final piece using Doughnut Beads and different stringing options. Bella's kit is the waxed cotton necklace (stretched out in the photo).


The Doughnut beads need a small scale pattern (only a small side view of the bead will be the visible surface) and the colours and stringing approach will inform the final bead design. The warm up exercise will simply try out different patterns and help understand how to handle the clay. The clay can be re worked lots of times in order to find something both suitable and attractive to The Maker. This initial experiment is key to making a success of the final Doughnut Bead and Bella is spending an hour 'playing' with the clay.
Next time, Bella will share her final Doughnut Beads after curing but before applying finishing techniques.

Thanks for reading.