What I did with my day off

Here's some pieces I made while messing around with the rough diamonds. I was experimenting with different ways of setting them, since they did change color in the kiln. The bezel is the easiest to work with I think, and the best part was when I realized that I didn't have to wait and order some tomorrow, I could just make my own! Metal clay is fun that way. Back to my regularly scheduled work now.

Rough diamonds

I've been seeing rough or raw diamonds more and more lately, so I thought I'd get some and play around a bit. I was mistakenly shipped a largish packet of small stones and the vendor told me to just keep them, so I have a bunch to experiment with. I put them in little balls of PMC3 and fired at 1110 for 30 minutes (and went out for Ethiopian food in the meantime). They survived the firing, but did darken. Which is fine for the ones that were already dark, not so good for the orange and yellow ones. I have plenty of other options for setting them though, so I'll continue to experiment. What I will eventually do with them I have no idea! That's part of the fun though.

Custom flower, start to finish

The drawing, done in Adobe Illustrator

Building the flower out of PMC. This gray thing is going to become .999 silver after firing in my kiln.

Just out of the kiln, where the organic binder has burned off and the silver particles have fused, created a pure silver flower. It's like magic, I tell you!

The finished piece, inlaid with tinted concrete



Here's a large custom piece I just finished which I photographed along the way to show the different stages of working with precious metal clay (PMC). I like to do my initial sketches on paper with a pen, but always take them in to Adobe Illustrator for my final template. Since PMC shrinks around 13%, it's very helpful to scale my drawings in Illustrator so I can get the finished size I want. The shrinkage does vary sometimes, but I can get very close to the final size I want this way. This piece is much larger than I usually work, 1 3/4" in diameter (45mm) I may have to make one for myself!

Great suggestion Jan!

Ready to fire

Finished

Jan J. commented a couple of posts ago that I should do gourd birdhouse, and here it is, both in progress and the finished piece. You can see more photos of it at my Etsy shop here. Thanks for the great idea Jan!

I work in silver precious metal clay (PMC), which is silver that's in clay form. The basic gourd shape was constructed around a form that I made, then I let the PMC dry and I cut it in half to get the form out. I re-attached the two halves, added the vines and leaves, and sculpted and attached the bird. The loop at the top is fine silver wire. The first photo shows the piece right before I put it into my kiln. I fired it at 1500 degrees for 2 hours, and the clay binder burned off and the silver particles fused. Kind of like magic!

Recent custom work

Here are a couple of recent custom pieces that I remembered to photograph before sending out. I start with a photo, and turn it in to a black and white drawing, which I then etch on to a brass plate. I use the brass plate to imprint the image in to the silver with. The black cat, Berkley, was quite a challenge since there was not much detail to work with. I think the piece turned out pretty good though. Frida the Chihuahua was fun, especially with that tongue sticking out!

Birdhouses

Here's my latest series, a collection of birdhouses. When I sat down my original plan was to do something with a bird's nest and baby birds, but I quickly ended up doing these instead! They are quite enjoyable to build, and I'm mulling over other house ideas at the moment.

Molly the Barn Owl and her babies

If haven't seen this yet, you simply must go check it out! It's a live web cam that shows a barn owl named Molly and her 4 recently hatched babies. Here's the link: http://www.ustream.tv/theowlbox Be warned though - it's totally addictive!