studs

I made this for my sister but now that a see these earrings I think its the worst thing I've never made

necklace

necklace I made for my sister for her metric dance

shweshwe earrings

These are a pair of earrings I made for myself from shweshwe buttons

beaded bracelet

first design

second design

finale design

This is a bracelet that I made to go along with a shweshwe dress my friend had made for umbondo (traditional Zulu ceremony when the future bride with her family send food and gives to the grooms home).

spring wire bangle

These are the two bangle I beaded from spring wire

African print studs

These I the stud earrings   that I bought from the fashion fair and my friends wanted me to get them made for them but in their own print.

Fashion fair

I went to the Durban fashion fair and I saw a lot of interesting fashion designers that I would l9ove to work with. It was a good way to network and I went to most of the stands there introduced myself told them what I do and gave them business cards. Most of them seemed keen to give me a call and I am much exited to hear from them. One of the designer asked if I could I could come to her boutique with my jewellery but the problem is I don’t have a full range of jewellery and I want to go there with a lot of things to show.

final piece for Thuthuka

This is the neckpiece I made for the thuthuka compitation

Thuthuka bead

It was close to hand in and I didn't have a bead so I took the pieces that I had folded up just as prototype and attached them together and it make my bead.

bead

this is the bead that was my first prototype and I have under glazes it then glazed it then added some lustre on it.

budvase

These are the bud vases that I make for Thuthuka. I enjoyed working in clay and will definitely work in it in the future when I get the time.

lloyd's tool

Punching the dots on the plate was becoming to time consuming so I asked Lloyd to make me a tool that make the dots for me and it works perfectly

Anglo gold design

bangle on the body

side view of the bangle

rendered drawing of the bangle

The Anglo gold design competition was due and I used the technique that I was busy experimenting with and  made a prototype  for the competition which was a bangle that was tapered from the ends to the middle.  I took a picture of the bangle then printed it to trace on then render and it came out beautiful.

my own folds

I'm trying to come up with  my own folds from the ones I have been doing  with aluminium 

 I figured that need my fold to be more defined and  the lines to be more accurate so I started punching dots where I want my fold to be. 

fold forming

After folding up paper it was time to start with folding metal and I was trying the the fold that I did in paper in aluminium . 

origami

When I had done the my first prototype from clay I knew  I wanted the bead to be made up from folded up metal  but I had to learn how to fold up paper into the desired shapes that I wanted and experiment with different types of folds.

African bead

   This is the bead that was my first prototype for the Thuthuka competition. I wanted to design a bead with the triangular shape from the beads in kwaNongoma so I carved out little triangles in a bigger  geometric shape.

Phansi museum

painted sticks from msinga

beaded Nongoma pattern

beaded skirt worn by young Shangaan girls

belts worn by the Nguni's from the nineteenth century 

Iziqaza from Msinga

Zulu pots

When I went to the Phansi museum I I saw a lot of  traditional African motifs from different Nguni polities such as the Xhosa, Zulu, KwaNdebele  and the Swazi  It was very interesting to see what type of art effect does each group make. When I went there I was looking at the beaded work that was there and there was some amazing piece that all these different groups make. The one style that really caught my eye was the beaded pieces from the Zulus in kwaNongoma. I love the way that they use small triangular shape to create bigger geometric shapes and it is the type of forms and shapes that I want to look at to design the fashion jewellery.

My plan for this term

I need to start learning and writing more about  Zulu bead work and how it could apply to my interests in runway fashion.. My plan is to find out more about the artworks in kwaNongoma, because it is where my family is from  and by exploring the geometric patterns used in Zulu bead work I will be rediscovering my culture through the jewellery I create.

 

beading

Carlo gave me a his box with a lot of beads the he doesn't need I’m so happy because I'm going to use them so make some jewellery over the holidays. 

little travaller

It was really fun when the ladies from little traveller come too show us how to make our own little traveller. I love my little Zuki and I’m very excited about the project .

sand casting

After showing the first how to sand cast I tried to sand cast the belt buckle once again finally it came out perfectly. I was very happy about how thing were going so i thought while I was on this momentum I should keep casting more of them. It was so disappointing that none of the buckles I tried casting after that came out right. I really don’t know what to say about these belts buckle any more.

sand casting

The first years had to do pieces for Rosey and I had to show them how to sand cast those pieces.  It was a bit scary because my own cast were not coming out very well so I didn't want to teach them something that I have no idea how to do. Although I had to show them how to ram the sand twice because I didn't do it right the first time , the cast come out perfect and I felt good about. However I do feel like the first years were not interested what I was showing them but it was great getting questions from the other half of the class.

casting

Casting the belt buckle for work space is getting very frustrating for me. Sand casting this is becoming a nightmare and none of the cast are coming out right. I’m feeling really lost doing this especially because right now the person I’m making this for is very impatient and doesn't understand the process I go through. It’s hard to explain to him that sand casting is new for me and that it is not guaranteed that it will come out perfect the first time. 

assembling my piece

I didn't have much time to make this piece but I really wanted to exhibit at least one big piece. There was no time to try out a lot off thing and use one that works so I just tried assembling everything using wire and just putting things together without really thinking long and hard about it. I finished the neck piece and it looked presentable but later on during the year I want to redo it in a way that I can be happy about. 

designing

When I had enough beads to work with attaching them together was even more challenging because I didn't want to just bead them on each other. I wanted to use wire to assemble the piece.

beads

Since I have been working with beads for sometime when I ran out of ideas with my leaves it was obvious thing to do. I bought different shades of green glass beads to make a beaded neck piece. I also bought big plastic beads to bead over them.

copper leaves

For Palmeits I thought about making copper leaves and then patanating them and then maybe making a neck piece using lots of leaves. I also enamelled a few leaves with hopes that I will make a piece with patenated and enamelled leaves. The exhibition was getting closer and all I had was leaves that are not really exiting. I tried to come up with ways to make the piece but every time I came up with something it felt like my I was repeating myself and was making the very same thing I was in third year and beginning of the year  and plus I was running out of time.

outing

Going to the palmeits nature reserve was great and we all loved the experienced we had. I enjoy seeing all the different types of plants and trees and to just walk around everything was amazing.