Monday, February 11, 2013

How To...Come Up with Fresh Designs

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Coming up with new and exciting designs is essential for artists to successfully sell their work. If you’re not selling you’re not eating and not eating is a bad situation.  The problem for many artists is tackling the daunting task of changing their tried and true designs to come up with a fresh new look.  So why make the change? In 1909 automotive pioneer Henry Ford was quoted as saying about the Model T, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”. Any idea why you can buy a car in a wide array of colors today? Competition. Years after making that statement Ford realized that if they wanted to stay ahead of the competition they had to make fresh changes to their product. The same idea is true with wire art.  If you keep making the same thing year after year eventually people will begin looking at the competition. To stay ahead of your competition it’s extremely important to give your work an updated look.
So how do you come up with a fresh new look to your pieces? Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. That’s a great way to view the monumental task of updating basic projects. The first steps in our design journey begin simply with a pencil and a blank piece of paper.

Before you begin sketching you need to define what you’re making. If you don’t define the project you’ll have no direction. One of the first projects most wire artists learn is a basic pendant. So for this first exercise we’ll update a basic wire wrap pendant.
Choose a stone to work with and place it on a blank piece of paper. With a pencil trace the shape of the stone (Picture 1). Remove the stone from the paper and have a look at what you’ve drawn. Congratulations, you’ve just taken the first step to giving your work a whole new look.

Picture 1

Every wire wrapped pendant has necessary elements that must be added to the piece for stability. Every pendant has to have a bail, wire strands must be brought over the front and back of the stone to secure it in place, and all of the wire strands have to be wrapped together. These elements can’t be omitted, but they can be modified.  Before making any changes to these design elements lightly draw them on the sketch just as they would appear in a finished piece (Picture 2). 
Picture 2
 
Now comes the fun part, making some changes. When I’m looking for new design ideas I spend a bit of time looking for designinspiration in magazines, the internet, and Pinterest. I look at all of the jewelry that the models are wearing and take note of the new trends that are on the horizon. One thing I’ve noticed about pendants is their size. Big stones are in. I’ve also noticed that the more “doo-dads” that you have on the pendant the more people love it. So we’ll go with that trend.

We first need to devise a way to add additional stones or metal to the basic pendant. A good way to do this is to add eyelets to the wire frame. These eyelets will allow you to hang design elements from the pendant.  Begin by drawing a small eyelet at the bottom of the pendant (Picture 3).
Picture 3
 
To take this design a little further draw in two more eyelets on either side of the first one (Picture 4). From these three small design elements you can take the piece in an untold number of directions. You could flatten and texture a few pieces of large gauge wire and hang them from each eyelet. Several beads could be strung and suspended from the eyelets. You can even add a couple more eyelets and have a ton of places to add design elements. The possibilities are endless.
Picture 4
 
Once you’re satisfied with the design the next step is to define the details. This step shows how each new design element fits into the piece. Typically you achieve this through both pictures and notations (Picture 5). Notice how each element is defined. Notations are made on how the eyelets are wrapped in with the other border wires.

Picture 5

To finish the design you must look at the basic elements that were added first. Do they still work in their current position? A few adjustments may need to be made before you can say the job is done (Picture 6). Take a few minutes to tweak the design until you’re satisfied with the results.
Picture 6

The point of this exercise is to show you how easy it is to make simple changes to basic designs to come up with a fresh approach to your work.  From this first drawing you can create an entire line of pendants that have the same design thread running through them. Add an element here and there to create something new and appealing to your customers.
The Finished Design
Trust me, the seemingly long journey of creating fresh work isn’t as daunting as it may seem. It all begins by taking that first step. 
  
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