Ballpoint pen drawings, ring design. Chinese Dragon.

Ballpoint pen drawing of jewellery piece.
Dragon based gold band, scales of fish. 

For the past four weeks I have been working on concepts for jewellery pieces. I am designing a range of jewellery pieces based on the ceramic installation with projected animation titled, and the ship sails on (follow link and or blog label for images and text on the ceramic work) I have been granted the opportunity for a one person exhibition at a leading Jewellery store, Elegance.

It is situated in an exclusive shopping complex in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg. The exhibition is scheduled to take place early next year and coincides with the Chinese New Year Celebrations. Central to the exhibition will be my latest ceramic statement, a ceramic installation featuring a five-clawed dragon. As mentioned in a previous blog post entry, next year is the year of the dragon. All works exhibited will therefore embrace the theme in various forms including artist books with a CD of the projection inserted in the cover. 

I will also frame a number of my ballpoint pen drawings (a limited edition of printed drawings on acid free paper) The exhibition will also feature a number of ceramic works (painted decoy ducks) with surface development options, based on the projected animation of the five-clawed Chinese Dragon. The decoy ducks are the major products in the installation (image below.

Decoy duck with projected animation, peonies.

Ballpoint pen sketches of ideas and reference material.

Jewellery Pieces – Artist Intent.

The following drawings are initial sketches of design concepts and ideas, based on chosen reference material - the earliest known Chinese jewellery pieces, carved in Jade. See previous blog post for more information including photo documentation and relevant books. 

I want the jewellery pieces to have a strong Chinese historical reference, ensuring a certain amount of authenticity. However the concepts had to be innovative and creative with a strong contemporary design style. More importantly it had to be an extension of my latest ceramic statement – the central piece of attraction at the exhibition. The dragon therefore has to feature in the jewellery pieces.

I had a strong premonition that jade held an important clue to the origins of the dragon and I therefore did research on both. Needles to say that I was right, the earliest of Chinese Jade pieces incorporated mythical images of the evolving symbolism of the dragon. For a synopsis into my research and historically significant images, see my previous blog post – follow link or label.

White Jade, 4.5cm.
Collection Institute of Archeology,
Zhejiang Province, China.

 The first Jewellery concept is based on the following jade piece. It is from the Liangzhu culture and has close connections with early Chinese religion. The piece of white jade was found at the foot of a body in a tomb at Yaoshan, Liangzhu. It is now in the Institute of Archeology, Zhejiang Province. The jades function is unclear.