Contrasting Rings

This is my series of three rings.

I made these rings for a University project brief, and the only requirement was that I had to make a series, but I got to choose my own subject to base my project on, I chose the ever contrasting lifestyles in Japan.

One part of Japan still lives in traditional Japanese huts or Minka's and the other part now live in over populated and over crowded built up cities.

I wanted to show this contrast through my pieces so this is what I made and how I made it.

to create these pieces i first had to look at elements of Japanese culture and i came across an ancient meditative practice of stone balancing so i chose this to be my theme.

to start these pieces i had to laser cut out 3 pebble shapes (small, medium and large) in 6mm Acrylic to create a die.

To create the double pebble ring i then used these dies to press form the pebbles out of copper and gilding metal using a hydraulic press, annealing the metal in between each press to push the metal further.

i also had to flip the dies in between each press to be able to create a top and bottom to each pebble.

to create the singular split strip ring, i had to cut thin strips of gilding metal out and solder them back together using easy solder, i then used the same process with the hydraulic press to create the pebble shapes but during this process the pieces split apart creating the gaps in the piece.

i liked this affect so i decided to keep it within the piece.

To create the built up, layered ring I had to cut up lots of strips of gilding metal and solder them one on top of the other to create built up affect.

Once they had all been pierced out I had to sand the edges of each piece flat so that the pieces would sit nicely on top of each other to be soldered together, after carefully soldering all the tops to the bottoms I had to then solder the smaller pebble on to the top of the larger pebble, this was a struggle because they kept wobbling but I managed it in the end.

After everything had been soldered together, I then had to create the ring shanks and solder those to the bottoms of the rings, once I had done this I used 33% ammonia to oxidise my pieces to this blackish blueish colour to give them more of a pebble look.

For the double pebble ring I created a simple, singular circular ring shank (basic ring).

For the split ring I creates a double ring shank, the first ring I created was a square, brass wire ring scored and folded and then I created a basic ring shank and soldered that inside of the square ring shank to create this double ring shank.

For the built up ring I scored and folded square wire into a rectangular 3 finger ring and soldered that to the base of the built up ring, I then polished this ring to create a bright, reflective ring to represent the bright lights attached to the built up buildings in Japan.

This is the end result of series of three contrast rings.

I hope you enjoy.