Glimpse Inside the Sketchbooks
Each collection of Sarah's rough-luxe, ancient-inspired fine jewellery and non-traditional wedding and engagement rings begins with sketches on paper - life drawing and design drawing, expressive and experimental. Take a glimpse into the sketchbooks to see some of the design process and inspiration behind the jewellery.
Sarah Ruth Stanford Jewellery
Nottingham, England
A typical sketchbook page when I'm working on refining a design, Magda KuczmikMy sketchbook is an essential tool in my design process. It's a private space for intuitive and expressive creation, filled with pencil and pen sketches and stream-of-consciousness notes. Forever searching for ways to express the intangible, this practice helps to pull ideas from my mind, solidifying them into tangible concepts that I can then refine at the jewellery bench.
'Muse', a textured gold pendant featuring two star-set salt and pepper diamonds, Sarah Ruth StanfordSome shapes and ideas keep recurring over and over in my sketchbook, such as this droplet-shaped pendant adorned with two 'stars', one above, one below.
Exploring shapes with watercolour and ink washes, Magda KuczmikI keep many of my drawings to hand, sticking them on my studio wall, and I reference them all the time when I’m designing and making jewellery.
A greetings card reproduced from Sarah's original drawing, Sarah Ruth StanfordThere is such beauty and mystery in images of the human form, and I'm inspired by the great Renaissance and Baroque artists who meticulously studied the human body as a way to capture emotion and dynamism in their art. I love to practice life drawing using expressive lines and gestures in pencil or charcoal, sometimes enhanced with watercolour washes or splashes of gold ink, trying to convey the essence of a pose with quick, evocative marks on paper.
Life drawing, pencil and ink on paper, and the 'Muse' diamond pendant, Sarah Ruth StanfordI often refer to these life drawings when I’m designing and making jewellery to find the rawness and the emotion that’s contained within. I like to explore the wandering lines and expressive shapes, and I love how some poses remind me of narratives, of archetypes from stories and myths, or of the position of figures in favourite paintings and sculptures.