What drives my art ..

Inspiration-Meditation-Association

  • Scottish Highlands

    No matter where I travel to I cannot help but find water and all of nature's wonderful curves. I'm inspired by the complexity of waves as they find their way around moss-covered stones and shiny underwater rocks, or sea water waves shifting with the current.

  • Nature's art

    Trees and plants everywhere! I am so refreshed each time I walk near our home as I marvel at nature's diversity and creativity. Sometimes I'll notice the waving movement of the trees as a gentle wind caresses them, and this gives me creative ideas.

  • World of colour

    Sunsets and flowers, eye colour and reflections, so much beauty in every land. Colour inspires my choice of gems embraced by silver or copper skies, or reflections on breeze-lapped ponds. Simple colours, mixed colours, surprising colours. I love them all.

  • An example

    In this example you can see how the silver wire follows the waves of water, the silver bubbles branching out like tree branches as in a dream, and the pale blue from the reflections of the gentle blue sky on the water.

    Gentle Dreams 

About Kathleen

Kathleen is our amazing art jewellery artist and qualified gemologist. She is usually inspired to create a jewellery piece based on either a stone's specific characteristic or a wire sculpture that forms the concept in her mind's eye.

What follows is Kathleen's process as she checks a stone, and creates and develops one such piece.

This website does not use artificial intelligence for any of its content, from the design of the jewellery, descriptions and photography. It is truly about artist-created and handmade jewellery.

In the lab

Here Kathleen shows her design process which takes many hours of creative and focused work. Years of experience show her commitment to her art.

As a gemologist, Kathleen always examines stones in her lab before using them, firstly to check their authenticity and their quality in order to grade them.
First stop is the loupe, a specific type of magnifying glass. Then she may use a variety of appropriate devices until she identifies the stone and grades it. Here Kathleen analyses a stone through her
microscope.

Here Kathleen has chosen her polariscope to inspect a stone, one of the many pieces of lab equipment she may use.

In Kathleen's studio

In her studio Kathleen uses paper and pens and sometimes her iPad to bring her concept to life. This can take several iterations until she is satisfied.

The prototype

Here she makes a copper prototype before using fine silver in the end product.

Working the wires

Our customers often marvel at the fine detail Kathleen is expert at, often wondering how she can work with such small wire work and so many wires of varying thickness.

Changes

Sometimes the copper prototype changes from the drawing as she is inspired during its making.

Completed

The finished copper bracelet!

The silver version

At this point she decides to make the silver version with different stones.

Taking shape

Here again Kathleen adjusts the design as the silver version takes shape. A maze of wires coming together along with her chosen beads. Sometimes there are 12 wires sprouting from the sides of a bracelet.

Finished!

The finished silver bracelet!

Photography

Now the photography kicks in.

Website

And on to the website for you to enjoy!

Not only does the design process take creative imagination, experience and skill, but also many hours of painstaking work.

Art jewellery demands no less.

Thank you for taking the time to see how I make my creations. Have a pleasant day!