Taking my creative wax carving jewellery workshops on tour to Nottingham
You must know by now that I’m a huge fan of the creativity of wax carving. I love to use the ancient art of Lost Wax Casting to help me create my unique Memento Mori jewellery. From my one-of-a-kind Valancourt skulls, sculpted individually each time, to the careful details in my Ignatius Sad Lion pieces, I start each time with the blank canvas of some wax.
I first tried this technique at a wax carving workshop with the incredible jeweller Ami Pepper, and after perfecting my own techniques over many years, I thought the time had come to share what I’ve learned. I put together a plan for workshops and started inviting people along to create their own masterpieces here in Bristol. Then the lovely Clare at BoneArrow in Nottingham invited me along to do a guest workshop in her glorious studio and I absolutely jumped at the chance.
If you fancy joining me on the journey of a wax carving workshop, follow along with me as I take you through each of the creative carving steps.
The amazing Bonearrow studio
A Really Great Workshop Intro
To get everyone comfortable with why they should listen to me, I like to do a little intro to myself and the ancient art of Lost Wax Casting. This takes the very creative and engaging form of… yep, a little presentation. I will be honest, every single time I’ve done this presentation I forget what’s coming up on the next slide. But the most important part is the excellent drawings.
Lost Wax Casting is a glorious technique that allows you to work in three dimensions really easily. It’s also super forgiving as it’s much easier to carve into wax than into metal. It can be a little tough to understand how that wax gets transformed into the beautiful finished jewels. For a while every time my Dad would ask me if I had to carve each piece in negative…
What even is Lost Wax Casting?
So, here’s a super quick version of the presentation to give you an idea of how it actually works. After carving your glorious design, I send away your wax where it’s added to a tree of others before being encased in a substance similar to plaster, called ‘investment’.
The whole thing is then heated which hardens the investment and causes the wax to evaporate leaving a perfect negative (that’s where the negative happens Dad!) in the investment. The chosen metal is then poured into the void to take the exact shape of your carving. The investment is smashed apart to reveal the cast pieces, where they’re snipped off the tree and sent back to me to be finished.
Playing with wax
The next part of the wax carving workshop is always the most fun for me. This is where I get all the waxes and all the tools out for creative wax carving playtime.
A large part of the joy of wax carving for jewellery is being able to create interesting textures. Over the years I’ve collected a bunch of different second-hand tools which are perfect for experimenting with to see what sort of effects they can create in the wax. Some are perfect for shaping - like files or scalpels - while others are more scratchy or poky. Some tools are blackened from being used in conjunction with tea-lights in order to create beautiful melting textures.
I also like to bring along different types of wax for people to play with. Often I’ll work with a hard carving wax, but I’ll also bring along malleable wax wires, and different thicknesses and hardness of wax sheets too.
During my workshops I build in time for play to give everyone a chance to try out different techniques to see what they like. I tend to wander around at this point, getting far too excited about different ways to create effects and textures in the wax. One of my workshops in Nottingham was with other jewellers, so this was our time to geek out together and try out new ways of doing things and swap tips.
Carving out designs
This is it! The moment when all those jewellery dreams start to form into reality. Taking the ring blank, or pendant blank and filing, shaping and carving it into a final design. One of the things I love about doing these workshops is the variety of ideas that come up. I’ve helped people carve gravestones and gothic arches, mushrooms and snakes, and even a Baphomet ring.
I’m very much of the opinion that if it works for you, that’s the main thing. Although there are certain things to bear in mind while creating in wax, I think if you’ve used a tool in a certain way that creates a result that you like, that’s the main thing. Who cares if it’s not the ‘right’ way to do it? My wax carving jewellery workshops are always a safe space to try things out and see what works for you.
What happens next - the casting and finishing
One of the more unusual aspects of coming along to a wax carving workshop is that at the end of the session, you leave with nothing. It does feel strange to send you off without anything to hold onto but a promise of something glorious in the future… but it’s always worth the wait.
I take notes about how you’d like your piece finished and I do the hard work of prepping your piece to be cast, sending it to my trusted casting partner Jewelcast Castings in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, and finishing it to your specifications.
Yes it can take a few weeks. But YES it’s worth it to get your hands on your very own, one-of-a-kind, bespoke carved, just-for-you, handmade BY you jewellery. That’s gotta be worth waiting for right?
If you’re interested in coming along to one of my wax carving workshops, make sure you’re on my mailing list to be the first to find out when new dates are launched. If you’d like to arrange your own private workshop for you and up to 5 friends, get in touch. And if you’re not that bothered about getting covered in tiny wax shavings and you’d rather I did the dirty work, get in touch for a bespoke commission - all the one-of-a-kind-ness with none of the fuss.