Just like fabric

My friend Carol Scheftic has been invited by Hadar Jacobson to be a charter teacher in her Accreditation Program.  Carol is a "big" fan of Hadar and has been working with her clays for a long time now.  So, when she said she would be teaching a class on using the powdered clays I jumped at the chance to join it.

It's not that I haven't worked with Hadar's clay.  Both Carol and I put off working with the base metal clays until some of the kinks were worked out.  (Not that there still aren't some problems, but not quite as many.)   I started out with the readymade copper and bronze clays but once I found Hadar's clay I never went back.  It has to be mixed with distilled water to make it pliable but it is much smoother and silkier than the other packaged clays.

It is this smoothness and silkiness that makes her clay perfect for the draping technique.

The clay is rolled very thin (1-2 cards thick) then folded and draped.

The clay can be left as formed or cut out with a cutter or template.

If using a texture, I found it best to roll the clay 3 cards thick first.  Then roll it to 2 cards thick onto the texture.  This draping technique really suits my design tastes (and it's fun to do.)  

Pete and I did our pieces in Carol's studio but due to time constraints we fired our pieces on Carol's new screened in patio.  

Check out Carol's blog for information on firing Hadar's clay.  

An older piece which I call "Tiny Dancer" (and was in a previous post) was created with Hadar's clay using the drape method.  This one was a free-form piece (no cutting from the shape.)