Tools of the Trade

I have a very, very small studio which doesn't really afford me the luxury of separate stations for different aspects of my work. This means that before I can start a bronze clay session I have to gather all my tools and paraphernalia around me so here's a little insight into what this entails...

The blue striped box holds some of my commercial texture plates plus anything else that takes my eye including wallpaper, fabric and lace and an onion net! In front of that are moulds that I have made myself. The blue ones are made from 2 part silicon gels - very expensive but much the best for moulding soft (or bulky) materials like plant matter which I'm very fond of using in my work. The green ones are made from polymer clay which is much cheaper and suitable for harder materials. I also use Polymer clay to carve original forms like these little owl pendants...

The tray contains all my lotions and potions and my tools. The 1 Cal Olive Oil spray never got used when it sat in the kitchen cupboard so I moved it into the workroom. It's a godsend as I'm a bit of a klutz and have knocked over oil bottles countless times as I never put the tops on while I'm working. 'Gloves in a Bottle' is a barrier cream which helps me avoid the horrible brown stains metal clay can give you and the lavender oil is for conditioning the clay but also has the added bonus of making the room smell nice.

Tools include commercial  shapers and cutters but are supplemented with more cost effective bits and bobs like knitting pins, cocktail sticks, emery boards... just about anything that comes to hand really. The little black box with the white balls contains cocktails sticks with cheap plastic beads glued to the top of them - I use these as forms for bead caps which I then poke into a block of florists foam to dry - necessity is the mother of invention as they say!

The little white artist's palettes are used as forms for domed pendants and clasps as they cost just a fraction of the price of the commercial forms like the copper one you can also see in the first picture. They're also great for holding tiny items I'm working with and mixing slip. For larger pieces I also use dead light bulbs as forms again stuck into florists foam!

The coloured strips are the spacers I use to get an even thickness when rolling the clay and these are one of the commercial tools that I do prefer. I was taught metal clay using playing cards as spacers but these come in graduated depths, are easier to clean and I've had much more even results since using them.

Earlier this year I received a surprise gift from my friend Cilla in British Columbia. Cilla is a Dental Hygienist and thought I might find these dental picks and scrapers useful for my clay work and she wasn't wrong - they're brilliant for getting into tight spots especially on delicate pieces.

I love, love, love silicone baking sheets for rolling metal clay on. I cut them into small pieces and then I just move the sheets to a drying surface with the pieces in situ and they just slip off when dry. Not having to move clay from one surface to another avoids the risks of distortion or marking. And finally, to the left is one of my tins of cutters - again an assortment of clay and culinary cutters mixed with bits and bobs that I've picked up along the way. There is a huge variety of commercial tools available for clay work (I spend hours in sugar craft shops) but you can find some sort of substitute for many of them around the home or garden.

Inevitably, this scene quickly becomes unrecognisable once I start work and eventually resembles  something akin to a small bomb site - as you can see, bit of a messy worker me!

But hopefully it's all worth it when I end up with lots of goodies ready to go into the kiln like these...

 

And finished pieces like these...

So, do you have any interesting items you use as tools or unusual sources for acquiring them...do let me know if I'm missing a trick won't you.



Lesley
The Gossiping Goddess