New versions of older designs and fun of learning :-)

Recently I am playing a little bit more with wonderful possibilities of hand creating prototypes of jewellery in metal clay and then translating them into pieces made with lost wax technique. I am pretty happy with the results and I definitely think this is a fantastic way of using properties of metal clay. I already posted here a few of my flowery designs, but recently I also made a few symbols, which I always loved. All the pieces in this post are made of traditional sterling silver.




This is only the beginning of a whole collection of symbols, but I wanted to start with motif of trees, Sun ("Solar mandala") and tiny, crescent Moon. All these designs were totally hand formed and carved (no ready moulds etc.), then made into sterling silver, and adorned with natural stones. I really enjoy the whole process.

On example of my first metal clay designs meant for lost wax casting technique I learned really a lot about dos and don'ts of the whole process. Avoiding undercuts, paying attention to thickness of all elements, thinking about how wax will flow when filling the mould etc.
And, yeah - this was a hard lesson - I also learned that if I don't say a loud STOP to myself, I can work on a design FOREVER. It's never good enough. But the funny thing is that it seems these imperfections are what make my pieces natural, and interesting to the eye. At least this is what I keep hearing from my clients. My inner perfectionst is crying ;-).

I am also super happy that I designed my own bails - they work nicely and correspond really well with the designs they are meant for (at least I think so ;-) ). They will probably be suitable for some other pieces I want to make and some of my one of a kind work. So, definitely no more generic, ready bought bails in my jewellery and I have some more ideas for this type of articulated bails coming.

As for other interesting things - I finally visited Wytwórnia Antidotum - jewellery making school based in Warsaw, to "collect" my prize for a contest I won last year with my pendant "Natura abhorret a vacuo". The prize were private classes in the school and I used it all to learn a little bit more about traditional techniques of stone setting. We focused on faceted stones. Here you can see some of my trials with different types of settings (yeah... A drunken hedgehog would probably do it better then I did, and I definitely need to practice, practice and maybe practice a little bit more ;-) , but hey - learning on your own mistakes also works :-) ). I generally knew how all these settings work, but it's a completely different story, to actually try it yourself under a guidance of someone experienced (big thanks to Remigiusz Grodzicki :-) ). I also did a few tube settings, but they are not in the photo. I had a lot of fun, but my hands really hurt :-))). After all - I am a delicate metal clay girl ;->.

Just one more nice photo for the end of this post ;-). One of my sterling silver "Twig rings", which also started their life as metal clay pieces, photographed in a pretty surroundings :-).

Some exciting news :-)

This post will be quite hectic, but I start travelling again tomorrow, and still have a lot of things to do before leaving. It was just too long without writing :-).

First of all - that piece from the previous post - "Natura abhorret a vacuo" - actually won that competition it was made for. I am really happy, especially that I got the most wonderful prize - some free classes in Wytwórnia Antidotum jewellery making school! I will "collect" my prize this Autumn - I am super excited. I am sure this will be very beneficial for me.










Second of all (or maybe I should have made it "first of all", because I am just over the Moon about it ;-) ) my piece "Startled" was published on the cover of "Handmade Business", issue August 2015. You can even find a  post about its making here, on my blog :-). It was such a great surprise. Inside there is also a wonderful article about metal clays, written by Jeannette Froese LeBlanc.








Third of all (I wonder if this expression goes beyond this number ;-) ) I started  an exciting journey with preparing pieces for my permanent collection, using lost wax casting method. Finally! I was thinking about it for a year or more. I found a very reasonable caster, made a few models using metal clay and they made the molds. For that first time I prepared a flowery pendant, three of my twig rings, and some tiny items meant mostly for stud earrings. I was quite impressed with the result. Of course there were some issues, but the caster is willing to work on the molds a little bit more, to make sure they work perfectly.It actually seemed that they had a little bit of fun too, because they hadn't worked with this type of design before.

It's a long story, and I will surely write a separate post about it. For now I am just showing you photos of two of my casted pieces. In the pendant above  I left the place for the stone without a setting, so it can vary in size, type etc. and I can make each piece unique in a way :-). And the earrings are actually super tiny :-). I learned so much through this experience, and this is another thing I will continue this Autumn, when I come back. I have a lot of doubts and various thoughts about the whole idea. I am also preparing a presentation about the whole process for Metal Clay Mojo retreat in Chester CT - I will show some interesting things on example of a tiny owl, which started as a metal clay prototype






Conferences, classes and stuff ;-).
Another exciting thing are all the journeys which start tomorrow. First I go to Japan - mostly for vacation, but I will also visit Aida Chemical Industries' studio in Tokio. I will have there a little presentation of my work. So - if you just happen to be in Tokio on August the 10th - let me know, I will give you some details :-). Of course I am very stressed :-) - my whole jewellery making life I have somewhere in my head, this little voice,  whispering "when they (whoever they are at a moment) see my work in person, they all will think - 'yeah... we thought it was better'" :-). Having this meeting in mind I made a few new pieces with Art Clay Silver - this tree among them. It's a good example of one of the techniques I use. Of course I am freaking out about the finish, "askewness" etc. but I try to think that all my jewellery is Nature inspired, and you know what? There is no such thing as "perfection" in Nature. At least if we define perfection in our weird, human way.

Classes - Yes. When I come back from Japan, I will have four days to prepare for my trip to USA. In one of the previous posts I wrote about my schedule of classes there. I will visit three states - Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Illinois. I am hoping to see some familiar faces and meet new people :-). I will teach my "Herbarium pendant" class in all the studios I visit. When I come back, I will fly to UK, to teach in Metal Clay Ltd. And then I'll be back for good :-). I also prepared quite a lot of things made of PMC Sterling and other materials, to be able to show some new work, wherever I go.


Ok, so I guess that's all. I am just leaving a few more pictures of  my recent work, and come back to packing!

Emperor Sun - on a learning curve :-)

Here I am again, trying to learn a little bit of traditional metalsmithing skills and thinking how to marry them with metal clay :-). I really enjoy acquiring new knowledge and challenging myself. Recently, when I taught in Germany I took with me a book written by Andrzej Bandkowski, entitled (loose translation - the book is in Polish) "A class of making artistic jewellery". It's not really a "class", you won't find any real tutorials there either. It's rather a quite personal take on basics of jewellery making with a ton of great tips and tricks. In my spare time I read the book, and what I especially liked, were all kinds of box-like constructions. So this time I wanted to try building something more 3 dimensional out of sterling sheet, train multiple soldering and sawing.




Sooo... Once upon a time ;-) I sculpted this tiny sun, using fine silver clay. I fired it, and left it for later. I even made a mould of it, which I rarely do, and added bronze versions to a few pieces, but the original little sculpture still wasn't used.

Finally I chose a stone and made a rough sketch of a general idea, slightly inspired by Art Deco (As if you could see anything in this sketch ;-)).
I didn't want to do anything too complicated.

Then I made more detailed templates, and glued them on a piece of sterling silver sheet. Note to self - really, really, you should buy a printer and start using vector art programs again (or a protractor, compasses, ruler etc. YAY! I loved geometric contructions at school ^^). Sketching freehand, in case of something that is not "organic" or super "flowy"doesn't lead to anything good. All the irregularities and inaccuracy started here. If you don't have a precise template for sawing, your sawing won't be precise. Yup, learning on mistakes again.

Anyway - I used what I sketched, marked places where I wanted to drill holes with a center punch and drilled them.

And here are my two elements after sawing and some cleaning. It's the first time I tried to saw elements that weren't "organic", but a little bit more geometrical and I have to say that it's so much more difficult than sawing swirls, waves , leaves and other pretty things ;-) (you can see under the links some examples of my other sawing attempts).

Then I started building the boxes. I measured circumference of the round element and cut a strip of sheet to form a circle that had a  diameter and height I needed (more or less... next time I will REALLY measure things). I soldered two ends of the circle together, and then soldered it onto my round element. I also cut two more strips to form a crescent-like shape - the walls of the other element.

You can see in the photo that the strips are of different width. If I used a proper tool to make sure that they are equally wide I would definitely save some time... ;-) But, yeah, no... Learning. I am just too impatient and excited when I try something new. I just cut them freehand.

I formed a crescent shape out of the strips (it was quite difficult to get the same curve - I just used my hands and forming pliers - maybe there is an easier way... Again - coming back to the beginning - if my crescent shape was really made of two nice archs, I could simply use ring mandrel to get the right curve on the strips...). Then I  filed the ends of the strips (I needed the places where they met, to be pointy, so they weren't visible from under the open work crescent shape), soldered them together and then soldered them onto the shape itself. I also found somewhere (you never know what you can find in your workshop one day ;-) ) twisted, decorative wire, and decided that this might be a nice touch to the whole look of my pendant, so I added it to both elements.

In case you're wondering why silver is so clean - I just took all the photos after pickling - otherwise everyhing would be covered with a ton of flux residue.

Now my boxes needed bottoms, and my stone needed a bezel cup. I formed a bezel, soldered it onto a piece of sheet, and cut out the inside. The stone has a nice back, so I wanted to show it, but my cunning plan ;-) was also to use this piece of sheet from the inside, for the bottom of the round element. Of course, because I judged it by eye, it turned out to be too small, so I had to find another piece of sterling to cut out the circle... Seriously... (facepalm ;-) ) Measure, measure! It's not metal clay where I can take a little bit more and roll it out again.

Before the last soldering I also filed/drilled a few holes in the walls, to make it possible to join the two parts of the pendant and to be able to string it somehow later. Then with an easy solder I soldered the crescent shape on top of the part with the bezel cup. In case of the round part, first I applied some solder on the back of my metal clay sun, flattened it on sanding paper, placed it in the right position, and then at the same time I soldered the round shape onto the circle and sweat soldered the sun on top of the box.

When I made sure that everything is really soldered I cut/file off spare silver from the edges and made sure they looked seamless.




I set the stone, made some finishing, and it was ready :-). You can see the back in the other photo below. I have to say that making this piece was a great lesson.... of cursing in all languages I know :-D. Just joking (yeah ;-) ).

Rendez-vous with PMC Sterling :-)

Yes, I know, I am behind everyone when comes to sterling silver clay :-). I guess it's simply because we don't have PMC distributor in Poland (anyone interested? ;-) ), so I rather stick to Art Clay. But last year when I got Rio Grande gift certificate for Saul Bell Design Award, I decided to spend it mostly on something that is not so easily accesible in my country, so PMC Sterling and Argentium :-). I already played with Argentium a little bit (fun!), but sterling clay was waiting and waiting... Finally I decided to try it.
Sooo, my plan for this post is to write a little bit about how did it go ;-).

Generally - I like the texture of this clay when it's wet - it's super fine,  quite similar to PMC3 - a little bit like a bubble gum :-) (if compared to Art Clay). Long working time, darker colour than fine silver clay - blablabla everyone already knows these things -  a lot of really great tests were published in various places.
What surprised me was how dried clay behaves. This material is undoubtedly designed for carving, and I don't really carve. I file. So at the beginning I was super annoyed by the fact that this clay, even when it's dried, is a little bit "buttery" and it clogs files immediately. So, in a way, I was forced to change my way of working, especially for this clay, but you know what - at the end I don't mind it. I learned a lot.



Another thing that I don't like is high shrinkage rate - I really don't need my pieces to become smaller. I can live with 10% of fine silver clays, but 20% is a little bit too much. And it comes with a price ;-) - bigger distortion. It turns out that it's not a problem in case of more or less flat pieces (all the pendants were ok), but in case of rings it is an issue. I had to reshape all the rings that I made so far, to make them round again after firing. I'll have to try firing plugs, but I don't like using additional stuff in firing process.

Yeah - as for the additional stuff - after a few first firings that left some carbon marks on backs of my pieces I learned (thank you Terry Kovalcik and Ros Wood! :-) ) that it's better to arrange firing in such a way that pieces don't have any direct contact with carbon - so cover them with a stainless steel mesh or something like that. With those first pieces I also tested soldering traditional sterling to fired PMC Sterling, and it works ok.






It seems that yes, this clay has its cons - no doubts about that -but the strength - it makes up for everything, and that's the reason why it's definitely not the last time I am using it. I want to use it more, especially for rings, but first I have to solve the distortion problem.

Here is another example of PMC Sterling work, mixed with sterling sheet and wire (the stone setting, bail behind it etc.) - "Dream Keeper". I cut sterling sheet in a shape which fitted exactly in between the ornaments on the back of the pendant, so it was easy to solder it. Then I soldered prongs on top of it and a bail on the back. It worked nicely.





If you are curious, here you can see a few steps of making my "Drawing down the Moon" pendant (the first photo), inspired by a Full Moon ritual. Someone asked in one of the internet groups, where did I get the mould ;-))))))), so I just thought that it might be interesting to show the process at least partially.

Here you can see some progress of making the face. I work mostly in an additive way. Then I take away some clay in "strategic" places ;-) with a file. I don't use any fancy carving tools etc. People who attended my classes know that I have just two favourite tools - something for cutting and a pointy file - this would be all.

Some more details. I didn't do anything to the face from that point - I was quite happy with the expression. I am still learning how to sculpt human faces and there is still a long way to go, but I feel I am finally starting to think about expressions and not only "how to make a face that looks more or less like a face" ;-).

Details, details. It's like building a tiny model :-). Adding a little bit, filing off a little bit. It's not easy, and it's not fast, but I think it's worth it. I just love this complex, three dimensional look I can get this way.

And some more building and filing - the piece might look quite openwork and delicate, but you might notice that each element is attached to something, really firmly, at least in two places.

Almost ready. I just added a little bit of 18K green gold inside the eyes - I wanted to create this feeling of her being "filled" with the Moon, with this otherwordly shine in her eyes :-).
And it was ready for firing. It turns out that manufacturer's schedule works just fine in my kiln, so I fired all my PMC Sterling pieces in two phases - first open shelf 538 °C for 1 h, and then buried in carbon 815 °C. for 1-2 h (depending on the size of the piece). After getting some marks from carbon in my first firings I make sure that I have some ceramic paper under the piece and stainless steel mesh above it. I don't mind quite long firing time at all - especially if I work on a piece for a few days. But I understand that this might be annoying for people who make a lot of simpler pieces.

Because of the green gold addition, in this particular case I repeated the second phase of firing twice. According to the manufacturer (Michelle :-) ), it requires double firing. You can read more about this material here. And I guess that this would be all for today ;-).

Flash drive enclosure kit - (mini) test :-)

I should have written this post a long time ago (I think I have this kit for a year or so ;-) - I got it from metalclays.com ). I just really wanted to try it with different metal clays, different types of ornamentation and time flew by... So let me share with you a few of my thoughts  and in-process pictures, of using this flash drive enclosure kit. In this photo you can see all three flash drive pendants I made so far. Each one made of different metal clay - Art Clay Silver, Goldie Bronze and Noble Clay (Classic Colour).


Here you can see what you actually get. Two blue parts for making walls of your flash drive enclosure, pink mould for making plugs which help to keep both parts of the pendant from shrinking too much, white investment powder to make the plugs, a magnet (for a closure) and a USB flash drive.
On their website you can also find quite easy to follow, very detailed instruction, and even a few videos.


The first part of the whole process is making the walls. You just have to roll out the clay into that big, blue mould. At this point, while the clay is still in there, you can add some textures - they will be visible on walls of your enclosure. Cool, but I'm really not into textures and I already knew that I wanted to make a sculptural piece, so I just left my walls smooth.
At this point it is very important to follow the instructions about when to remove the walls from the mould, because it really makes a difference (walls fit better to each other). This is also the moment when you realise how much clay this project requires and you start regreting that you decided to make the very first test piece in silver ;-).


After cleaning edges of the walls (honestly this was tricky - I filed them a little bit too much and changed the angle of the edge, which originally was 45°...) you put them together, simply with a bit of paste. This blue cradle makes things much easier. First of all it helps with keeping 90° angle between the walls. You can also notice in the photo that inner surface of each wall has a lot of little holes (they are here to save some clay) and letters, which indicate what goes where - A to A, B to B etc. etc. It takes quite a lot of time to put the whole box together, because ideally after adding each wall you have to wait till the new joint dries.
If you applied some textures on the outer surface of the walls, watch out not to stain them with paste - I had quite a lot of paste on the other side of the seam.



On the side of the cradle, through a little "window", you can check if your walls really fit well together. I have to say I liked this detail.









Here you can see how my first assembled box looked like. It definitely wasn't perfect - the edges weren't super crisp - I had to file them a little bit. I also had to patch a few places with paste from the outside. If I applied a texture on the walls in the first step, this wouldn't be so easy. I would probably destroy the pattern a little bit with all that filing and adding paste.







Then I took out my magic wand, and I made my little elves work... HARD ;-). And here is what they made - my flash drive enclosure was almost ready for firing.
Being more serious - at this point you can embellish your box any way you want. My pendant was inspired by a Norse sea goddess - Rán. I just formed and carved each detail using two of my favourite tools - a scalpel blade and a round, pointy file.






There is one more thing you have to make before firing - the plugs. Just mix a little bit of that white powder with water and pour it into these pink moulds. Now I know that it's a good idea to do this BEFORE you even start working on your pendant. These plugs dry quite slowely and they have to be really dry before you put them inside both parts of  the box.








And here is my flash drive enclosure ready for firing with both plugs inside. You can see a part of the plug in the smaller piece. The second one is almost fully inside. Then  I just followed my usual firing schedule for Art Clay Silver (full ramp to 800° C, hold for 2 h).







After firing and some finishing the pendant looked like this. I was really happy with the final result BUT the thing is, that I had to do A LOT of post firing filing. The plugs didn't really prevent the clay from shrinking too much - the USB flash drive didn't fit in there at all. My theory is that the kit is rather meant for texture-type embellishment, and I added a lot of additional clay on my box. It's probably exactly as it is with rings - heavily embellished, sturdy rings seem to shrink a little bit more than thin, delicate ones. I'm also always aiming for the highest shrinkage possible with my firing schedule - I fire long and hot. It's just a habit connected to the fact, that a lot of my pieces are delicate and openwork, and I need the material to be strong. So - the kit worked ok, but some additional work was necesarry.


 
Later I decided to test the kit on a different clay. I got a few types of Noble Clay to try, and after one test firing (now I know I should have made more tests...) I decided to make something more serious than just a test strip. Following the instruction once again I made this flash drive enclosure. I have to say, that this time, with some experience from the first trial, it was faster, easier and the result was more precise.






Imagine my disappointment when after firing I saw this... Actually at first I saw the top of my enclosure which was fine, but when I turned it over I saw all these blisters (back was originally flat and smooth). There was also a lot of distiortion. It was very interesting, that the top was ok, but the back was basically melted.




Again - I did a lot of filing, tried to make it straight again (which was super hard), and I left the back the way it was - I just polished it (funny thing is that the person who owns this pendant, actually said that this back looks very interesting ;-) - everything is a matter of taste ). Well - honestly I was quite annoyed, and I haven't used Noble Clay anymore from that moment :-))))))). One day I will - I still have a few packages, but I have to be in a right mood for further experimentation.







For my last experiment with that kit I used Goldie Bronze. The construction of the box was easy peasy this time - I already knew very well how to use this kit.
I added some intricate, sculptural ornamentation, and fired it the way I usually do (350° C on top of carbon for 1 h, and 825° C for 1 h with more carbon and closed lid).







This time everything went ok, and the flash drive fitted inside - I guess it's because Goldie has such a low shrinkage rate. So here it is ready. It was inspired by a visit in Josephine Wall gallery in Poole, last year.








Ok, so here are my general thoughts:

- Flash drive enclosure kit is definitely a smart tool.
- Follow instructions really carefully, otherwise it won't work precisely.
- If you fire to the highest shrinkage and /or add a lot of additional clay on top of the boxes, be prepared for a lot of post firing work. The  flash drive probably won't fit inside (I guess in my case I should try with Art Clay Silver that version of the kit, that is meant for PMC, which has higher shrinkage rate).
- The price is high, so I guess I would rather recommend this kit for people who really plan to use it a lot. I saw some wonderful flash drive enclosure pendants, that were adorned mostly with texture sheets and didn't have any issues with too much shrinkage (Inge Verbruggen uses this kit very successfully).
- Yes, it makes things easier and faster, but of course you can construct this kind of a box without help of any kit. It's just about saving time, and not everyone is great with construction.
- Will I use it again? Probably yes. But only with Goldie. I spent too much time filing silver one, and next time I'll just construct the boxes my own way, and make my own calculations, to be sure that after firing everything will fit ok.