You're really growing on me!

I can’t believe it’s been a fortnight since my last post. Where has the time gone??? A lot of it has been spent playing with my bronze clay. I didn’t realise that I’ve spent 2 weeks working out firing schedules and coming up with new ideas, so this is pretty much all I have to talk about this week.

To start, an update on the pieces I made 2 weeks ago. If you follow me on Facebook, you may have already seen that I cracked the firing schedule, and managed to successfully sinter the lentil beads and hare pendant.

It took 4 days of constant firing and adjusting, but I’m now confident that my creations will stay in one piece.

A good tip I picked up while researching, was that the majority of problems with pieces not sintering properly is to do with the first part of the firing and burning off the binder rather than the top temperature. Once I’d discovered that, I altered the schedule and it worked. It was a happy day! 

The lentils didn’t work brilliantly, they turned in to bronze with no problems, but they warped as they were fired and one cracked, I wonder if bronze clay is similar to ceramic clay in that it will warp if dried too quickly? A test for the future! 

I didn’t have anything to polish the insides with so you can’t make out the designs too well, and unfortunately the CZ clouded, but it’s all lessons learned (and the opportunity for shopping!)

One thing I really like about this brand of clay (Goldie hard) is that it’s really easy to fix. As I said, one of the lentils cracked, so I packed in some wet clay, left it to dry and ran through the schedule again. It filled the crack perfectly!

Once I had a couple of firings under my belt, I tried some more complex designs. Another hare, this time with an embedded bronze setting and some leaves and flower vines.

And then finally on to an idea that has been sitting in my head for a long time… making bezels. 

I rolled thick pieces of clay and carved out the inside with an undercut around the inner edge to set a tiny sculpture. 

I really like the variation of effects and colours you can get with this bronze. When first fired, it's rough with a grainy texture, but once polished, it's lovely and shiny and can range from bright and yellow to a warm gold.

Originally, I wanted to fill it with ceramic clay, but the firing temperatures are too different and trying to work out the shrinkage would have been a nightmare, so I created the design in polymer clay which was carved and baked in place. (I didn't realise how mucky I'd got it, I should have washed my hands properly after the polishing!)

Once cured, I painted it with acrylics.

I have some sealant on the way to finish this off and make it more durable, but I’m really pleased with how it’s looking so far (although I think his eye needs a bit more colour) and have a hundred and one ideas for more!

Metal clay, I owe you an apology, you’re not that bad after all!

Making An Impression

Lately I've been experimenting with different ways to make impressions in polymer clay.  Let me show you what I've been up to.

 

I've been going through my collection of stamps to see which ones could be useful with polymer clay.  Originally I'd put that Christmas ornament stamp (top, left) with the "not useful" stamps. The ornament was too large for a pendant and besides, I didn't really care for it either. When I took a second look at the stamp this week, it occurred to me that its not necessary to use the whole stamp. I realized that parts of the stamp could make very attractive components. See the checkerboard pattern at the top and bottom of the stamp?  I made an earring pair with that pattern, (top right). Next winter, I'll use the snowflake in the center for earring charms.

I had 2 rectangular stamps, one of which made the pendant in the second picture and another which is shown in the bottom pair of pictures.  I didn't have any circle cutters that were small enough to make earring charms, so I used the cap from a highlighter pen.  It was a bit difficult to get the cap to release the clay, but I managed.

I've found that a cutting mat helps me to make nice straight cuts.  All I have to do is line up my tissue blade with the lines.  Sometimes a more organic shape is called for, in which case such precision is unnecessary.

When I was wandering around Michaels awhile ago, I came across these inexpensive textured foam squares in the children's craft section.  I haven't tried them yet, but I'm thinking that they will be a fun way to texture the polymer clay.

I didn't have any of the scratch foam that several of our AJE team have written about, so I tried using a foam meat tray.  I tried different tools for carving it and had the best luck using the tip of a pair of chopsticks (above, left).  It works, but is not easy to do. I found it worked best with simple designs.  It wasn't possible to do any detail work on the foam. I think I'll have to investigate the actual scratch board.  

The top right was just an experiment.  I cut out holes in the green clay using the end of a cut down straw.  Then I cut the same sized holes in purple polymer clay and inserted the purple into the green.  It wasn't difficult and although this pendant is not great looking, I can imagine possibilities for using this technique in more sophisticated ways.  I cut this piece out with the clear plastic lid that you see to the left of the pendant.  Somehow air got trapped inside the cap when I pressed it down into the clay.  As soon as I let go of it, it made a loud POP and it sprung up into the air!  Caught me by surprise for sure!!!

The bottom left picture shows all the items I made in this session, except the cut-out pendant.  

At the time of this writing, I haven't finished painting all the cured pieces.  However, I can give you a sneak peek of the rustic pendant I made with the meat tray foam. I'll be back here in 2 weeks to show how all components turned out after painting.

Linda
Linda Landig Jewelry – ArtFire 
Linda Landig Jewelry – Etsy