I have worked with Precious Metal Clay and Art Silver in the past, but for my most recent creations, I wanted to try out some of the cool new base metal clays. I have been a huge fan of
Hadar Jacobson's work for several years. In addition to being fabulous artist, she makes and sells different types of metal clay in powder form. I love this idea, because there is no concern about the clay drying out. She provides detailed instructions on mixing and firing the various types of clay. The mixing is pretty simple. It just involves adding distilled water to the powder until the right consistency is achieved. The firing is a little more complicated, as I learned through trial and error. Best of all, base metal clay is far more affordable than pure silver or sterling silver clay.
I used Hadar's
White Bronze Metal Clay for my first experiments. I test fired a few simple shapes and they came out just fine. However, when I fired my first few "real" pieces I realized they had not sintered because they were thicker than my test pieces (sigh....). Fortunately, all was not lost, and I was able to re-fire most of the pieces at a slightly higher temperature and they were a success!
Here is the first piece I made combining White Bronze and polymer clays:
I made a textured dome form out of polymer clay and added a garnet cabochon and some swirly designs.
I wanted my next piece to be more complex, so I decided to make a test piece with polymer clay only and THAT project became a very fun distraction with a life of its own for several days!
Here is the White Bronze and polymer clay version:
I used a layered construction in both pieces to add an element of depth. I will absolutely be doing more with metal clay in the near future!
In other news, I was fortunate to have my work included in gift bags for the press at the GBK Gift Lounge for the MTV Awards, as a member of The Artisan Group.
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