I teach a range of jewellery making short courses in my central London workshop - this month I would like to share more about the soapstone carving course I offer.

This course next runs on Sunday 30 April and then on Saturday 17 June and the day costs £130 per person, to create your own unique carved and polished stone pendant or individual paperweight.

During the day we will look at blocking out and planning a design, using simple hand tools to create your chosen design, and then smoothing and polishing your carved surface if desired.

Soapstone is a particularly soft stone - because it is soft and easy to work, it was one of the first materials carved to make decorative items by our distant ancestors, and has continued to be carved right to today - to carve it, all you need are hand tools such as files and drills.

The stone has a gorgeous tactile quality and creates beautiful sculptures - it can be polished smooth, or you can create surface textures or patterns. This day is a creative day exploring shapes and using the soapstone to experiment with the process of sculpting.

If you'd like to have a go at exploring your creative side and creating your own stone sculpture - do get in touch! Places can be booked here - http://www.pennyakester.co.uk/store/p46/Carved_Soapstone_Pendants_-_One_Day_Jewellery_Making_Class.html, or do get in touch if you have any questions about the day!

*** THIS IS NOT A LAPIDARY COURSE and these skills are not directly transferable to working with precious or semiprecious gemstones as these are much harder and require different equipment to shape them.

I teach a range of jewellery making short courses in my central London workshop - this month I would like to share more about the electroforming course I offer.

This course is running next on the 6 & 7 April 2017, and then again on the 9 & 10 June. The course costs £210 for the 2 day course and this includes all materials.

What is electroforming?
Electroforming is a way of depositing metal particles onto the surface of another item. The process can be used to either entirely coat a master model (eg a wax carving) to create a strong but lightweight metal form (allowing larger scale work than would be practical to cast in solid metal for example), or to add metal highlights onto a non-metallic object.

In my work as an artist / designer, I use electroforming to add contrasting elements, to add metal forms into designs that use other materials as well. For example; I create metal highlights onto hand carved stones, I use electroforming to combine with beadwork or to blend and hold a stone into place on a fabricated metal form.

In this course we will be working with copper - growing copper onto non-metallic objects such as stones, leaves, twigs, glass, ceramic items, gems, and more.

What does the course cover?
The first morning covers preparation and setup -
We start the course with how to prepare objects for electroforming, using sealants and then conductive paints, safe use of these and the key practical considerations for the most successful results.
Once the pieces are prepared, we cover setting up a simple, basic kit that is practical and affordable for electroforming at home or in a small workshop.
The course then takes a break, I run the tanks and check on them every hour over the afternoon and the next morning. It takes a while to grow a substantial layer of metal, so the class continues on the afternoon of the second day.
On the second day we cover working with the completed pieces plus kit storage and maintenance -
We start by going over all the pieces that have been formed - what worked best, what might not have worked so well, and what could have caused this / how to improve it.
We look at refining, finishing and using the formed pieces - what can and can't easily be done with them.
We also cover how to safely store the chemicals and kit and how to maintain the liquid and materials for future use.

 I offer a range of scheduled one day and short courses aimed at anyone interested in either trying jewellery making for the first time, or for more experienced jewellers looking to extend their dkills.

I teach from my studio in central London, where I have a bright space that will comfortably fit up to 4 students at a time - this small group size ensures I can pay personal attention to each student throughout the class, but students still get to share ideas and benefit from working as a small group as well.

Added new this year - I have added a 3 day Mixed Media course to my schedule...
This course is designed to give students the time to develop skills including different mediums with their metalwork. We will start with exercises using rivets, tabs, screws and pins to connect layers or sections of different materials together, and will then move on to allow students time to use these new skills in design/s of their own.

Planned for people with some basic metalworking skills - students should already understand how to pierce, file, sand and solder silver or copper.

There will be a selection of metals, acrylic sheet, resin, fabrics, yarn, beads as well as a variety of other found objects and natural forms and more that students will be able to use to experiment with. 

This course next runs on Friday 24 February and can be booked here - http://www.pennyakester.co.uk/store/p44/Mixed_Media_Jewellery_-_3_Day_Jewellery_Making_Class.html