You are here: Home / Linda Connelly Enamels / Making the Moghul Garden necklace

Making the Moghul Garden necklace

01/04/2020 by

The design was inspired by a moghul carpet in the V&A

A closeup of part of the carpet. I did lots of drawings too.
I spent a long time refining the design and then started to plan the colours.
The design was refined on the iPad together with the design for the earrings.
The silver was cut out and formed with hammers before being engraved with gravers.
I like to form the wires and hold them on double sided tape on a tile. I often do these whilst I am doing gallery duties. I was so excited to find these gorgeous frosted orange jasper beads in my stash. I had planned to use lapis but these were much better!
The wires are all in position on the first layer of silver flux. It needs a steady hand to place in the kiln without knocking them. I do dip each one in cellulose gum to help them hold and not slip around. Complicated designs will take multiple firings to put all the wires on but I could do these at the same time.
First layer of colour ready for the kiln. I leave the really strong colours like the blue background until the second or third layer as otherwise they are likely to creep under any gaps and spoil the piece.
A few of the firings of this piece. In reality there were many more, painstakingly applied with a brush or quill, avoiding contamination of the colours and tapping carefully to remove any bubbles.
Finished Enamels ready for their settings. These have been ground and polished to a perfectly smooth and shiny finish.
Finished earrings.
Moghul Garden necklace with frosted orange landscape jasper beads.
I wore the Necklace and earrings to receive my award at the 2020 Goldsmiths’ Craftsmanship and Design Awards.

No related posts.

Filed Under: Linda Connelly Enamels