Oh sod it :(
My order arrived last week and i had a couple of ideas in my head, one of which i drew a few rough sketches for and YAY i thought. So sat down at my bench and started. First piece, really simple idea, a fold of clay, like those paper fans you used to make at school, only not even. Rolled the clay, used th cookie cutter, hey presto, bobs your uncle etc etc done :D. Second piece was going to be a little more complex. A 'bar' of copper. Rolled the clay, used the snake roller to make a nice even short length of 'wire' as it were, and then shaped it as i wanted, this also worked. Let that piece dry and then added the 'tabs' through which rings will soldered for the chain. That also seemed to work. Third piece, 5 simple squares, cookie cutter, clay then the delicate job of positioning the pieces while they were still 'wet' and also ensuring that they were bonded to each other well. One didnt but as the clay had dried not a biggie and it was expected,so i bonded them using the scrap i had made into paste.
And now the bad news :(. The folded pendant fired beautifully. The surface is again a little to 'pitted' for my liking, so i really need to practise keeping the clay moist enough during working and get the paste a better consistancy. But otherwise i'm very happy with how it turned out, as i pictured it basically, which how i work, no amount of sketching will make a difference if the piece doesnt look how it does in my head, thats my sketchbook. The fold pendant will get a ruddy good tumble to see if i cant smooth the surface a little more, then maybe get the burnisher on it as well. Now, the copper 'bar' which was/is going to be combined with art clay silver at some point to produce a statement necklace. It fired well considering it is a lil larger than the recommended size for torch firing. Quenched, then pickled. It was only when i was washing it that i noticed that one of the 'tab' hangers has spilt :(:(. It is still attached to the bar, the paste seems to have worked there, the flat section of the 'tab' has split. I will post a picture so you can see what i'm waffling on about. The piece is still useable i feel, but the look has been spoilt,so need to get my head working as to how i could possibly fix that.
And so on to the squares pendant. Real simple pendant, 5 squares, slightly over lapping each other, joined and then hung on leather thong or similar. Again after careful checking and much paste, i thought it was ready to be fired. Torch on, flame on piece, as the binder began to burn off the dang thing simply fell apart, nooooooooooooo. So i continued firing them as i may well now just rivet the things together instead. And to top it all they seem to have 'curled' up so got my trusty benchblock, nice shiny unmarked one, and now it's not on one side, the copper squares have marked it, all i did was lightly hammer each square to flatten them, soooooooo annoyed.
So my experiements with copper clay are going ok-ish lol. One piece out of three that is exactly what i wanted, the other piece could still be salvagable, the third will end up as something else. Still got enough clay to try the squares idea again, which i may well do as it was a nice simple one but effective i thought.
Ah well off to get out the tumbler and see what becomes of my pitted surfaces.....oh er missus thats sounds painful
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