Varying a multiple

The photopolymer process is often used to create multiples.  This makes it quicker and easier to repeat a design.  If I want to be able to tell people that a certain piece is one of a kind, I need to vary each piece a little.  Often that is changing the color of a CZ or firing the piece in a different generation of clay which creates different sizes due to the shrinkage of each generation.  It may also mean varying the kinds of beads that each piece utilizes in it's final design.  These are some of the things I did with my skulls.

Better late than Never or (I think I've used that title before.)

This post should have been made over a month ago, but of course I was still in my "funk" period.  But, as the title says...... better late than never.  

I've been reading Kathy Reich books and watching the entire ten seasons of "Bones."  That and seeing my daughter's skull necklace must have influenced me.  I was certainly into a Sugar skull mode.  

I made more skulls than I intended  due to a mistake on my part.  I made several photopolymer plates from my skull drawings.  A photopolymer plate is a way to make molds or "stamps" from original drawings.  In a future post I'll share more info on the plates and how my mistakes made for more variety in the skulls.  

Nothing stays the same

Life changes.  We all know that.  But why do my metal clay suppliers have to change?

Last year it was the end of Whole Lotta Whimsy, the supplier I used the most.  One of the things that I could only find at WLW was the two and four inch, metal backed PPP plates.  All the other supplies were available elsewhere but not the PPP plates.  I asked Tonya Davidson if she knew another place to get them and she said she was working on it.  Yes, I can buy big sheets of the plates and cut them myself....... but that creates more work and theirs were so much nicer than I can do.

Today, I heard that the Mitsubishi Co. will no longer be making PMC Standard.  The standard was the very first version of PMC clay.  It shrinks 30%, has to be fired at 1650 degrees for two solid hours and is the weakest of the metal clays.  But there are times it is really handy to have the Standard formula.

Awhile back I needed a dragonfly for a pair of earrings.  The dragonfly mold I had was too big, so I made it with the standard clay which shrank it considerably.  I took the new smaller dragonfly, made another mold and made it again two more times.  This gave me the right size for the piece I was making and a batch of dragonflies to use in other pieces.  

The shrinkage is also good because standard clay carves like butter in it's dry state.  This allows the artist to work big (which makes carving easier.)  Then when the piece shrinks it looks even better.  (I understand that newspaper cartoons are drawn large and then shrunk for the same reason.)  

I hope enough metal clay artists will raise a fuss about this.  Standard may not be used as much as the other formulas but it has it's value.  

 

Speaking of Backs

One of the first people I traded charms with at the conference was Kim Paige.  (She recognized my charm from my blog...... nice to know that it's being read.)

Kim's charm 

I mention Kim because she was wearing a necklace that had her children on it and I noticed it immediately.  When I went to take a closer look at it (on her neck of course) I saw that the other side was also beautifully designed.  (Why is it we immediately turn the piece over?....... another reason for taking extra care with the opposite side.)  Kim designs and sells under the title "Red Tree Studio."  (I guess that's why the red leaf!) 

Check out her portrait pendants.  http://redtreestudio.com/photopendant.htm

A few years back I did a portrait of my granddaughter Olivia.  That was another reason I was extra interested in Kim's necklace.  Her technique allowed for more detail than the photo polymer plate I used.  

Actually after seeing Kim's, I'm embarrassed to even show mine.  In fact I won't.  I'll just show the sweet little picture it was taken from.  This is Olivia Pearl!

Solder or not

      My earring extravaganza class at Arrowmont was chockfull of techniques; one of which was soldering.  Up until that week, it had been 40 years since I had done any soldering.  (Oh my word I feel old!!)    I really did get pretty good at soldering way back then (as my students use to say.... when the dinosaurs roamed.)    But, all these years later I was really nervous when we had to solder during the earring class.  It was surprisingly easy and the nerves weren't really warranted.  

   Metal clay can be soldered, but for the most part I don't think I will be soldering very often.  The metal clay paste with lavendar oil added, works just as well (without the nerves.)  As long as there is a flat surface to attach the paste I'll be pasting instead of soldering.  

     This is a fabricated piece (made during my college years) that I sawed out of sheet metal, filed, domed  and soldered the domed front piece to the domed back piece.   Then I soldered a pin to the back........ in the middle.  Wrong thing to do.  It flops down when worn. (Which means it hasn't been worn in years.)  But I like the way it looks.  Someday I plan on duplicating the design in metal clay. 

    I've soldered posts on earrings and pasted them on too.  Both methods achieve the goal.   I'll post some photos of both sets of earrings as soon as I get some good photos.  (Still battling that demon.)

PPP earrings

    The last commission I worked on was a gift for the local cross country coach from her team.  The cool thing about this commission was that I was able to use the coach's own drawing for the earrings.  Unfortunately I had to lower the back leg of the runner so she was either just starting out or running slower than the original drawing.  If I had kept the leg where it was the earring would have been waaaaay too wide.  I also had to eliminate some of the little detail in the hat but I think it worked out anyway.  I hear she was wearing them the other day.  How cool is that to wear your own drawings on your ears? 

   I made them using a Photopolymer plate, which is really an easy process.  It just takes a little experimenting on the computer to see how they'll look when they shrink.  I used Standard clay for these so they would shrink a lot.  That gave me the chance to work bigger, but not have huge earrings.   I was pleased with the way they turned out.  What do you think?