Thursday, January 12, 2012

Third time is NOT a charm!

Slip trailing is a ceramic technique that can be applied to metal clay.  It involves creating a background piece, thinning clay down and dripping it over the backing in a random fashion.

I've only done this a couple of times before.   The first time I  had great success.  The second time was not quite as successful; but acceptable.  Well today, I tried it again for the third time and the third time was NOT a charm.

A friend of mine, Deb Crisman, who had admired the first set of earrings emailed me the other night and wanted to come in to make a pair of slip trailed earrings.  There have been several times I could have sold that first pair if I had wanted to.  (But, I like them too and wear them often.)

We decided to try the technique with copper.   Why not?  It should work and it did.   The slip is poured into an empty syringe, which is passed over the backing in a random fashion.  The backing is made thinner since the slip will add more weight to the finished piece.

First, my slip shot out in a big blob.  (Wiped that off.)  Then I used a tip on the syringe with too big of a hole....... more blobs.  I ended up taking a spoon and dripping the slip on that way.  By this time, there wasn't much texture or design on my pieces and the back (which had texture at one point) was covered with slip that ran under the back.  Do you notice that there isn't a picture of my pieces here?  (Good reason for that!)

Deb on the other hand, handled it like a pro.  She's worked with syringes (her daughter is a veterinarian) and it shows.  Zip, zip, zip and Deb had a gorgeous design on her backings.  So....... I share her beauties with you.  I'll show them again after they are fired.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to seeing how Deb's (and your) pieces turn out.

But the real reason I comment is to say "Thanks!" for the inspiration to write this:

Third Blob's a Charm!

which was intended as an attempt to offer you some encouragement to try again!