When I first saw Cate Blanchett as Lady Galadriel, I was breathtaken. She was the perfect person to represent the elven sorceress. I loved the sinuous lines that were signature to the elvish culture and I wanted to recreate the lovely brooch that she wears in all of her scenes.
I studied the photo of the brooch on the extended DVD and I noticed that the leaves and the vines interwine and flow into each other. I decided that this effect would be difficult to duplicate using sheet metal and wire, so I decided to try to create the entire brooch using polymer clay. I have had a lot of practice working with long, skinny pieces of clay from making Evenstar pendants and Elven Leaf brooches so the technical aspects of the project were not a huge challenge. The difficulty came in making sure that all the pieces were assembled and positioned correctly.
As with all of my clay work, I take great care to hide the seams and the finished clay brooch was gorgeous. I was relieved that nothing broke apart after I baked the piece and I began the daunting task of coloring the piece. In the real brooch, the center medallion is made of mother of pearl. I painted mine using a white pearly paint, with the barest hint of rose pink. This was then coated with 2 coats of glossy varnish to make it gleam.
The leaves and vines were the most time consuming component of the brooch. I did not want them to look like they were painted so I decided that I would cover them with silver foil leafing. Each leaf and vine was painted with a grey base coat, then a layer of special glue. The I carefully applied the foil leafing, using an embossing stylus to get into all the cracks and crevices between leaves, and then sealed the foil with varnish. Since Galadriel's brooch is a frosted silver, I didn't want to leave the leaves a brilliant shiny silver. I added a very dilute coating of frost over the silver to dull it down. The finished effect was perfect. The leaves certainly don't look like they were painted, and they don't look like they were foiled. They truly look like sterling silver! Of course, they back of the brooch went through the same treatment (paint, glue, foil, varnish, frost) because I wanted this brooch to look phenomenal from all angles.
Here are some photos of my brooch:
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If this page has inspired you, here is a list of some of the materials I used to create this beautiful brooch.