Sharing The Clay Love

My sister-in-law, Heike (pronounced Hi-kah) is one of my favorite people to collaborate with, on art projects.  She and her husband are visiting us from Germany and will be here through Friday.

Heike, sketching designs for stoneware pendants.

Over the years, we've taught each other a wide variety of crafts. For example, one year Heike taught me silk painting (dyeing) and we made this wall hanging together.

And when I was in Germany 2 years ago, I taught Heike how to make a simple right angle weave bracelet.

I've been looking forward to sharing some clay play with her during her visit this year.  She has made jewelry with silver PMC before, but not with stoneware. So I thought you might enjoy seeing the process Heike went through, as she created stoneware pendants for the first time.

First I got out my buff stoneware and showed Hieke how to prepare it and roll it out evenly.

I spread out a large collection of cutters, stamps and texture plates.

And then we went out in the garden to collect some flora.

I showed Heike that if you cut your shape through a plastic sheet, the piece will come out with nice rounded edges.

 Then she got to work; bringing her drawings to life.

 The center of this pendant will be accented by a bead after it is glazed and fired.

Heike used a texture plate (below) on part of a pendant and plans to glaze it in an ombré effect.

The first pendant, on the left, will have a bead added in the center hole, as part of Heike's necklace design. The  2nd pendant from the left, will be glazed in an ombré effect.  The sets of 2 and 3 pendants will be connected together with beads or jump rings.

We let the pendants dry overnight and then we accelerated the drying process a bit by putting them in the oven at 190F for a few hours.  It is important that they are thoroughly dry before being placed in the kiln, or they could possibly explode.  We did a bit of last minute tweaking and the pendants were in the kiln by about 11:30 a.m.  Creating ceramic jewelry components takes several days, and we're a bit under pressure to get our project completed by Friday, when Heike and my brother in law head back to Germany. 

In my next blog post, I'll share the glazing process and the end products!  Till then-

Linda Landig  
Linda Landig Jewelry