Bronze clay. In the beginning...

You have to start somewhere.

I have tentatively dabbled in silver clay twice. Once in a private class in San Diego over 10 years ago. The instructor was Jonna Faulkner; I was working at the Shepherdess. Then here in Delaware; my good friend Sara Teixido is a metal clay goddess, and I have used the medium under her guidance. But that's as far as I went...

Why? Price? Fear that I would love it SO there would be no turning back? My magpie-like love of all things shiny silver? Then there is the bronze, and the copper. I have had so many gorgeous pieces from my colleagues and AJE team mates. Still I hesitated. Carbon? Firing? Learning curve? Sintering?

Whee! Free rein to test out Karen's stamps! 

This Labor Day weekend a few of us from the blog gathered together for a mini "Art Camp".  With both Karen and Lesley there - Jennifer & I had masterful support to dive into bronze. This post is in no means a how-to! Just my excitement at trying... and succeeding... in a medium that I had longed to try for years.

One picture of me at work where my hands weren't a blur... LOL

First let me say - the stuff is HEAVY. you take a pinch of bronze clay, compared to a similar pinch of polymer or stoneware. Wow. Its dense and feels substantial. Working with it was as expected: lube up your hands and molds as needed. Don't dilly dally as it dried out rather quickly.

Layer after layer. Spacing things in the carbon/ 

Karen made loading the ceramic firing box make SO much sense. Totally demystified the process for me. And while things fired, we went to work with seed beads. ( I introduced them all to peyote stitch beaded bezels and bead embroidery. They may or may not be hooked! )

Cannot wait to see! 

I'M SO EXCITED. Doing a Snoopy dance in my head right now.

Freshly washed: Karen's, Jennifer's and mine all mixed together... 

Post firing? Lesley and great advice on sintering, how it sounds, how to test it...  Its worth it to try to break a piece to see if the clay sintered properly. And the metallic "ring" of your newly fired piece on the sink is music to one's ears! Again I was struck with the heft of the pieces. Sure, mine were a bit "sturdy" and could be thinner, but they feel "real". The image above shows the natural patina resulting in the firing. These were washed off, that's all!

At home now - brush and tumble... 

To tumble or not to tumble? To sand to a satin finish? To burnish high points to a high shine? How do you decide!? The goddess ( top left, below) was burnished with an agate burnisher. The group on the right was tumbled - I loved the subtle satin sheen they have now. The last two ( bottom left) were scrubbed with a brass brush. I think this batch is complete - reminding me of different finishes and possibilities.

The specifics... details and finishes. 

A perfect partnership. 

And this one? Its mine! A wee bronze charm stamped with a eucalyptus pod from San Diego - and my thumbprint apparently! This stunning cab was from Lesley, and the bead work was completed after a great weekend of friends, creativity, techniques... and wine. 

All in all, I think I love bronze. Now to try copper. I was lucky - I know one doesn't get every piece fired perfectly every time. But until next time... 

What new technique or medium are you eager to try? 

Dressing your hammers!

Some time back, I promised to show you how to dress your hammers…. and then I never got around to it. Today, I’m trying something a little different by showing you the process in a video instead of trying to explain it in writing. I hope you like it!

A few notes:

• This is my first full-length process video. I see this as something I’d like to do more of, so help me make it as effective and beneficial for you as possible! We’ll get better at sound and camera angles, but in the meantime I’d love your constructive feedback and comments.
• A huge thank you to Letty Wilde of Silver Leaf Artisan Jewelry – Letty is one of my students, a dear friend, and my assistant in my studio one day a week. She operated the camera and warned me about “resting bitch face” more than once!
• Please excuse the horrific state of my working space – the entire Roadhouse Arts studio and classroom area is in transition right now, and we had just gotten back from BeadFest when we shot this, so everything looks like a bomb went off.

Thanks for watching!

Until next time –

Turning coins into clasps

I have always loved coins, and tend to think of them as little works of art. Then came a love of jewelry making and the next thing I know I'm making coins into beads and clasps and here is how I do it....

Doming Coins

First I dome the coins using my dapping block and brass mallet, it is always best to start off on the biggest size dome and then work your way through the smaller sized ones because if you just go straight to the smaller size you can crack/split the coins. Two or three sizes is normally sufficient.

Making hook clasps

Next I make the hook clasps, If I am using silver coloured coins then I use sterling silver wire if the coins are not silver then I tend to use copper wire. The wire needs to be around 1.2mm thick about 16 gauge or the clasp will not be strong enough when finished and will bend.

Checking the Fit

The size of the clasp depends on which coin I am using and the finished clasp needs to sit comfortably inside the domed coin.

Cleaning the Insides

Next the inside of the coins need to be spotlessly clean for the soldering I tend to do this with either the ridge remover part of a nail buffer pulled off the buffing block or some fine grit sand paper.

Spotless

It is important that they are really clean or the solder will not flow properly! I also give the hook clasps a once over with the sandpaper just to make sure there is no grease or dirt on there either.

Ready to solder

Then all suited up in my protective clothing (apron and goggles) I set to soldering! I use easy solder paste on the two places where the clasp touches the coin and prop the clasp in place using tweezers and a few coins to hold the tweezers in place. While soldering I heat the coin and not the wire as I don't want the wire to melt (using the tweezers like this also helps to protect the wire from over heating).

Cleaning up

After a dip in safety pickle and a rinse in bicarb the coins come out looking pretty ghastly, so I give them a rub over with a brass brush to remove some of the crusty stuff and throw them into the tumbler for an hour. The tumbler dose not bring the coins back to silver but it dose clean them up a little and helps to work harden and polish the clasp.

Polishing

They come out of the tumbler shiny but still rather black so I use my rotary tool and a block of rouge to polish them up and bring back the silver colour.

All Shiny

There you have it shiny coin clasps!

Making The Oak Leaf & Acorn Pendants

I started forming the idea for this month's COM pendant way back in March, while we were still in Oaxaca, Mexico. 

I'd attended a garage sale/art show where I saw this cool necklace made of drilled acorns.  I thought that if I cut the necklace apart, the acorns would make cute earrings and could be accents in other jewelry. The necklace was only three dollars so I snapped it right up!  The necklace led to thoughts about incorporating a dimensional acorn shape into a ceramic oak leaf pendant.

I tried impressing a real oak leaf into the clay, but it didn't leave a deep enough impression for what I had in mind.  So I drew an oak leaf on scratch foam (Kristi wrote about scratch foam here, if you'd like to learn more).  I cut the foam out in the shape I wanted the pendants to be and then glued a cork on the back to use as a handle to press into the clay.

After making the oak leaf impressions, I cut them out, using a fettling knife. 

I made a silicone mold of one of the Oaxacan acorns. Then I attached the molded clay acorns to the leaf pendants and added the little wire loops. The wire is made of a special metal that won't melt in the extreme heat of the kiln.

I let the clay dry for about 24 hours and then used a damp sponge to smooth any rough spots and to round the edges. The pendants were then fired in the kiln to about 1915 F (1046 C).

After the pendants were fired, I glazed them in rich autumn colors.  I wanted deeply saturated fall colors, so sometimes I mixed 2-3 commercial colors together in order to arrive at the exact palette I was looking for.  All the pendants received 2-3 coats of glaze; front and back. 

 The colors always look so pale and chalky before they are fired.  The heat transforms them and it is always a thrill to see what they look like after the second firing!

Once the glaze was dry, the pendants were carefully hung from rods in the kiln.  If any of the glazed pieces are touching, they will fuse together during  firing.  

The kiln was then reassembled, enclosing the pendants and they were again fired; this time to 2185 F (1196 C).

The result?  Take a look!  Two of these pendants are available in my shop now, with more coming later this month.

~Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry