The Houses of Parliament 'New Dawn' Jewellery Commission - Sketches

The 'New Dawn' commission to create a collection of jewellery to accompany Mary Branson's artwork celebrating women's suffrage was an exciting and intense project.

The most difficult thing was that I was sworn to secrecy!  I did so many sketches with lots of ideas with quite diverse designs for the jewellery until we decided on designs for the final pieces.

 

  First pendant sketch with colour

At least seven colours needed to be incorporated to represent the colours of the banners of the suffrage organisations.In the end major colours that were deemed to be required to be the most prominent were purple, red, green,yellow and white/silver. Blue was also chosen to be featured as it formed part of the the male suffrage organisation banner an organisation that also played an instrumental part in the movement.

                                           Page of sketches with some colour

                                          Final pendant technical drawings

After the initial sketches were complete a series of technical drawings were done showing the dimensions and construction of the jewellery pieces. The sketches then had to be approved before the making began.

My next blog about making the 'New Dawn' Jewellery Collection coming soon.