Reviewed by annieb123 on
Creating Wooden Jewelry by Sarah King is a tutorial and gallery guide for exploring wood alone and in combination with other materials as a medium for jewelry. Due out 10th Dec 2019 from Fox Chapel, it's 176 pages and will be available in paperback format.
Wood is certainly not a new medium for ornamental jewelry. It's warm, it's easy to work manually and shape, it provides a palette of colors, textures, and densities, it is relatively inexpensive, it combines perfectly with other media, and it's attractive. This is a tutorial book as well as a gallery aimed (mostly) at jewelry artists by other artists.
The 20 project tutorials included in the book are skill-building exercises and provide practice in shaping, choosing materials, connections for assembly, combining other media and objects with wood, and tools and materials. The entire book has clear and complete photography including the step-by-step tutorials. It also includes a solid links/bibliography/resources list as well as a cross referenced index.
This is a solidly written guide for jewelers and crafters who are interested in expanding their repertoire to include wood as a medium in their work. The projects included run the gamut from beginner to advanced and there are takeaways here for a broad range of artists and crafters, not just jewelers.
Five stars. Admittedly something of a niche book, but very well done and accessible. This would make a superlative selection for an artist/designer's home library, or for a maker's space library, guild loaning library, art class/school or the like.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- Finished reading
- 24 November, 2019: Reviewed