Category Archives: jewellery

Choral artwork

By Somhairle | Published: January 25, 2013

I’ve been donated a pile of these beautiful choral & organ scores to work with, now they’re unfit for use. Really looking forward to starting off on them. First up, a set of jewellery using sheet music from Handel’s Messiah. I’m still trying to decide what to do with the cover of this one, though [...]

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Raffle Prizes

By Somhairle | Published: October 15, 2012

I was asked a while back if I’d donate something to a raffle in aid of Special Effect, who specialise in adapting console and computer controls for physically disabled children and adults – that’s everything from making a 360 controller a bit easier to use, all the way to tailoring eye-tracking software for the otherwise [...]

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Destruct Testing

By Somhairle | Published: September 25, 2012

I’ve accidentally put a couple of pieces through the wash before, and they’ve been fine. However, I just found this in the pocket of a shirt I put on, which had been through a 90-degree white wash. So that’s a really useful data point!

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Precious Non-Metals

By Somhairle | Published: September 6, 2012

Paper is amazing stuff. Historically very special and magical, but it’s so much a reflex these days to think of it as extremely cheap. We say “cheap as chips”, and don’t even think about the paper the chips come wrapped in. The art papers I use are rather more expensive – I’ve been doing some [...]

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Recent projects

By Somhairle | Published: July 21, 2012

I’ve been working on a few new paper-jewellery lines recently, partly in preparation for trading at Alchemist Dreams’ Storytelling Speakeasy. Here are a few of them – as always, click through to Flickr for a better look.

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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

By Somhairle | Published: June 9, 2012

This is the latest permutation of my text jewellery – it’s made not from an existing book, but from a handwritten copy of the first page, covered with a layer of washi, cut into jewellery blanks, and then edged & varnished as normal. I love the combined effect of the fountain pen ink, the glue [...]

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Shakespearean jewellery

By Somhairle | Published: April 20, 2012

I’ve been making quite a few of these lately, from an old copy of Midsummer Night’s Dream rescued from the recycling. It’s the same technique I’ve been using for pendants, layered artists’ mountboard sealed with acrylic & varnish; the colours are Talens Ecoline watercolour inks, which I’m really falling in love with. The cheap paper [...]

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Rose pendants

By Somhairle | Published: March 23, 2012

These are what I’ve been working on over the last week or two – they’re made entirely of paper & glue, painted & varnished. The handmade original (below) was sitting around for a few months, while I kept picking it up and thinking “must do an improved version of this”, and then shortly after that [...]

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Destruct testing, tool making, and jewellery

By Somhairle | Published: January 23, 2012

I’d been wondering where this was for a month or so, and it turned out it had been in an inner pocket of my belt pouch all along, with the leather cord wrapped around it. The continual pressure (and probably the warmth) has pulled off a little of the paint, but that’s all. I’m fairly [...]

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Slate exhibition

By Somhairle | Published: December 28, 2011

For the next six weeks, my work is on display at Slate in Leytonstone—you can walk along Leytonstone High Road and see it in the dedicated street-facing exhibition space on the corner with Church Lane. As usual, you can click through to Flickr for the full-sized versions – they’re not the best of photos, but [...]

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