Missing in Action

Sorry, that I've not posted in a while.  I didn't realize how long it's been.  Life has been so busy and my ambition level is at low right now.

I have been into the studio a few times and haven't really accomplished a whole lot (except to make a mess.  There isn't an open square inch on my tables.)   But there have been a couple of things that I've finished up, so I thought I'd share those.

This was a piece of sheet metal that I etched the design.  I made quite a few pieces and they've been laying around waiting for me to do something with them.  Combined them with some great butterscotch colored beads from Bead Paradise in Oberlin, Ohio.  

My repousse' piece that I made in Holly Gage's class a few years back was carved in silver. (Check it out in my post on May 19, 2011.)   I took that piece and made a mold of it which I then used to make a copper piece.  This piece uses beads I got at Beyond Beads in Volant, PA.

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.  

More "Kissin" Cousins

Here's more pieces made from some of my Photo Polymer Plates.  Again, it's interesting how different the pieces made from the same plates can be.  

The finishing touch

The Flex Shaft is a great tool (if you use it and I finally am.)

The past May I took a class at The PMC Retreat at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN.  It was a short class that gave us an overview of how to use our Flex Shafts.  (Seems I wasn't the only one to own one and not use it.)  Ruth Greening taught the class and made up kits that included rubber wheels, sanding drums and 3-M wheels.   Basically, the class consisted of us trying out the different wheels on a scrap of copper sheet.

My favorite is the 3-M wheels.  They are rather expensive and you don't use just one.  A minimum of three wheels are used on the mandrel that is inserted into the Flex Shaft.  Luckily they last a long time.

The wheels are used progressively from the coarsest (the white) to the finest (the green) to clean and polish the metal.

Another reason I like the 3-M wheels so much is that they don't hurt your fingers if you happen to hit them.  (Unlike the sandpaper wrapped around the split mandrel.)  I'm such a klutz.  

Draping

      One of the reasons I like metal clay so much is because it incorporates a variety of techniques from other mediums.  I became an art teacher because I like to do it all and metal clay still gives me that chance. 

     The technique I was playing with the other day was draping, which comes from the ceramic world.  I had forgotten all about the technique until I saw it in Hadar Jacobson's book.  I use to teach it to my 3-D students where we would roll out the clay into a thin slab and then drape the clay over a form (usually upended bowl.)

     In metal clay, the clay is rolled thin (I made mine 2 cards thick) and then draped over an object or folded back on itself.   The clay sheet can be manipulated as though it were fabric.  

     The left hand piece was a rather large drape.  It's in the greenware stage and will be worked on some more.  The two round pieces are fired and were supposed to be a matching pair of earrings but my brain could just not get them draped the same way.  Doing the drape in reverse (as is needed) for earrings just befuddled my mind more than it usually is.

     I was a little nervous when I opened the kiln.  I figured that the two round pieces would need to be fired again.  They were all copper and were fired with a couple  pieces of copper and bronze combined.  Copper is to be fired at a higher temperature unless it is fired with bronze.  Obviously, as long as there is bronze in the kiln, it must work because they were sintered just fine.  They were also a very pretty color. 

Copper and Bronze clay

     As was mentioned in my previous post, I've revisited working with copper and bronze clay.... via Hadar Jacobson's powdered clays.

     A little over a week ago several of my friends and I had a play day to try out the clay. Ginnie Weltner, who is a frequent student and friend and my college roommate, Cindi Armstrong  (who visits every Labor Day weekend and is a once a year student) helped me test out the powdered clays.

     We each mixed our own clay and tried Hadar's "inlay" technique which is one of the first projects in her most recent book, Pattens of Color in Metal Clay; Canes, Gradients and Mokume-Gane.   My friend Carol Scheftic has a photo of two of her pieces in Hadar's book.  One of them is the inlay project.  The book is worth checking out.

     The inlay project is made by rolling the copper clay to the thickness of two popsicle sticks, impressing a deep texture or object into the clay, filling the depression with the bronze clay and sanding the piece to expose both of the clays in a level surface.  (Now I know that my description is not very detailed and it's not meant to be.  For more detail, check out Hadar's book.)

     For the most part it's not working with the clay that stresses people out but the firing process, which I'll talk about in another post.   Luckily, both my test piece and the final pieces fired successfully at the recommended temperatures.  

     The only thing I noticed was that the bronze appeared to be more porous looking and had small cracks in it.  (It wasn't the same in all the pieces which could be attributed to us each mixing the bronze clay differently.)  I also know  I wasn't as careful mixing the bronze as I was the copper and felt that we all had it a little drier than it should have been.  (Another learning experience!)  We could repair the cracks and re-fire the pieces.  (Which we don't plan on doing as they were very small.)

     The final step was to apply Baldwin's Patina to the highly polished and cleaned pieces.  Baldwin's Patina is specially formulated to work on copper and bronze.  I found it worked best when the piece was warmed up in very warm water.  (Otherwise the clay just seemed to suck the patina right in.  It didn't do that in the video!  Hadar's blog offers a video on how to apply the patina.)   The patina highlights the contrast between the copper and the bronze.

     So far, the only thing I do not like about using the bronze and copper clays is that they are very dirty to work with.  Using liquid gloves does help keep the hands cleaner, but somehow the darn stuff manages to still get under the fingernails and the dark dust is everywhere.

     I have several other pieces ready to be fired before I decide for sure whether I like this clay or not.  They all use the drape method and will be much lighter in weight than the inlay pieces.  I'll keep you posted.

The jury is finally deliberating

The containers of copper clay were two different shades of red

Clay pieces contain both copper and bronze clay

Larger piece is by Virginia Weltner

Years ago there were only two brands of clay and two kinds of clay, silver and gold.  Now there are a myriad of companies making the clay.  Copper, bronze, white bronze, rose bronze, steel and pearl gray steel clays have been added to the family of metals available.

In several previous posts, I have mentioned how the jury was still out on these base metal clays.  Well, the jury has finally gone to deliberation on at least the copper and bronze clays.

In March my local guild, the Western Pennsylvania Metal Clay chapter of the PMC Guild, in conjunction with the Cleveland Metal Clay Guild, brought Hadar Jacobson to the area for a class.  Unfortunately (well actually it was a mixed feeling about missing the class),  I was not able to make it to the class as I was in Florida at the time.  (Sunshine, blue skies and warm temperatures eased my pain of not being able to take the class.)

Hadar's clay comes in powdered form instead of as a mixed lump of clay which means it has unlimited shelf life (unlike the other clays.)   This past week I finally was able to "play" with her copper and bronze clays.  I think I'm in love.  They mix up so smoothly and feel much silkier (and less stiff) than the other base metal clays.

In the past, firing issues kept me from working with the clays more.  My "test piece" this week fired up beautifully.  Hopefully it works the second time when I fire the actual pieces.  I'll let you know.

Trying again

Silver's gone up and so has the price of metal clay. The last time I ordered it had jumped up $2. Right now I have no money (well, I have enough to pay the rent but not much else.)

So, I decided to turn to the base metal clays. I had part of a 100 gram pack of CopprClay (which was as dry and crumbly as cookie dough), part of a 100 gram pack of Bronze clay (which was hard and green), one 200 gram pack of Bronze Clay, two 50 gram packs of Art Clay copper, (the opened, but never used pack was hard as a brick and the other pack was nice.) Plus I had one vial each of Hadar's copper and white bronze clay. (It was way past time for me to use these clays.)

I also had some unfinished pieces from Debra Weld's class in August of 09. (Obviously I didn't have to worry about them not being dry.) I made some major changes to their design though since the clay was dried up. The CopprClay carved liked butter and was easy to drill through.

The first time I fired pieces from the class it went well. The second time was a partial disaster. The pieces I created in class fired fine, but the pieces I attached to them disintegrated in the tumbler. (What pretty coppery water it was though.) Today I fired more of the class pieces using a two part firing technique. I fired on an open shelf at a ramp of 500 degrees per hour to 555 degrees and held for one hour. When the pieces were cool enough to handle I put them in the stainless steel container with charcoal and fired for four hours. (The directions said 3-5 hours so I aimed for the middle.) I won't know until tomorrow morning how they turned out.

While the CopprClay was firing (which seemed like forever) , I decided to try the Art Clay Copper for the first time. Since everything with these clays is so variable, I try to keep it simple for the first few times out. The pliable clay was pretty easy to work with, except the first time it stuck to my teflon sheet. (Go figure!) It was also easy to drill but not as easy as the CopprClay.

Art Clay Copper can be torch fired, so I gave it a try. I torched from 3-5 minutes per piece. The silver clay is torched to a peachy glow and the copper clay is torched to a cherry red (which is hard to see through the safety glasses.) Immediately after torching, the piece is quenched in water to remove some of the fire scale. Then it goes into a pickle solution for about 15 minutes to remove the rest of the fire scale. Now here is where I started to get nervous. I assumed the fire scale would be black (like the picture of the copper clay in the kiln), but it wasn't. It was basically a dark red, which dropped off in the water. I didn't even have to put it in the pickle (which was a good thing...... didn't have any.) But when I went to brush the piece, a wet red color was wiping off the piece. That made me nervous since it was a reminder of the disintegrating incident earlier. They felt very hard so I popped them into the tumbler and held my breath. Two hours later they came out of the tumbler shiny and in once piece. Phew! The color isn't quite as coppery as the CopprClay though, but they're nice. And it is nice to be able to torch fire. Tomorrow I'm going to try kiln firing the Art Clay copper. It only takes 30 minutes (which is a lot better than 3-5 hours.)

The Copprclay was air dried which is what Debra wanted us to do. I dried the Art Clay copper on the candle warmer. Debra told us the base metal clays have more elasticity than the silver clay which may make more cracks appear as the clay tries to return to it's original shape. I think that is why she recommended air drying. I did notice that it was a little difficult when I tried to form a circle over the back of a paint palette. The little bugger kept wanting to pop up.

I did work with Hadar's white bronze clay once and felt the consistency of her copper clay. I may work with her clay tomorrow, but I need to use up the opened pack of Art clay before it dries out. That is the nice thing about Hadar's clay. You don't have to worry about it drying out and I know the consistency is nice and creamy not stiff like the other clays.

Slow down!

The copper firing done on Thursday was definitely a learning experience. The first rapid firing netted great results. This one did not.

Nothing cracked like I thought it had. The cracking sound was a couple of balls popping off a piece. Other than that, everything looked great.

I brushed them and threw them in the tumbler. (Copper clay should have it's own barrel for the tumbler.) They tumbled for a couple of hours. Opening the tumbler is always like opening a present at Christmas. The first two pieces came out shiny and bright. The third piece had half of it's decoration missing! My first thought was that it cracked off, but it was not to be found in the tumbler anywhere. What was found instead was a nice coppery liquid at the bottom of the barrel. It disintigrated! So, I started to wonder. I took a pointed tool and started to dig at the rest of the decoration and sure enough it was soft like the original clay but had a copper crust on the top. The entire decoration came off easily.

Then I tried another piece that had a decoration on top. It looked great, but once I started digging, it turned to powder. Wow, how did that happen?

My thoughts on this is that the decorations were still wet. The base pieces had been dry for over two months. These pieces were put on the night before and I mistakenly thought they would be dry by the next day. Wrong!!! They were really, really thick pieces and obviously it takes more than a day to dry. The base pieces were fine, it was just the decoration.

For some reason it is best to air dry copper (and I presume bronze clay). For that reason I did not use the usual candle warmer or dehydrator.

I did take pictures, but don't know how to get them onto my son's computer. When (and if) I get my laptop back, I'll be sure to share.

Lesson learned....... you can't hurry love (oh, sorry that is a Diana Ross song) copper clay.

Also, the Open house is not going to pay for my computer repair. It will pay for my mailings and food but that is all. Don't ask..... it's a sore spot!

It's Christmas tomorrow

Finally got around to firing my finished copper pieces. I only had three of them done but decided that I might as well get them fired. If I waited until they were all done it could be next year.

Copper clay is fired in coconut charcoal (no, it's not acorn charcoal!) The charcoal has to be fired for three and a half hours before using it. Not sure why, that's just what I was told.

I've heard all different methods of firing the copper clay, but went with the method that Jan Durkin (from my metal clay guild) used. I fired the pieces flat on a shelf for one hour at 500 degrees F. As soon as they were cool enough to handle, I put them in the stainless steel container on top of one inch of the charcoal. All the pieces were laid around the center. Then I poured the rest of the charcoal on top, (used a one pound bag) and ramped the kiln at full speed to 1650 degrees. I fired them for three hours and forty-five minutes. (The directions were for one hour and thirty minutes but I just thought I'd be different.)

I did learn that my kiln won't get to 500 degrees and hold for one hour if I use full speed. I had to use speed number two (500 degrees per hour) for it to work. Using full speed kept shutting my kiln off as soon as it reached temp. (Hopefully this isn't an omen of more problems with my controller. The book never has my problem listed.)

Now begins the wait. The kiln is supposed to cool down on its own, so I just left the studio without peeking. Hopefully all works out well. We'll see tomorrow. The anticipation is just like Christmas. I'll share (hopefully good news) tomorrow night.

Took the plunge

Debra helping Cathy with her piece

We dried our pieces in a dehydrator, but also used this very formal method of drying our pieces. It was a good thing it didn't rain.

Some of Debra's unfired examples.

Well, I finally took the plunge and tried copper clay. (Bronze may be next.)

I had been putting off trying one of the other clays because there seemed to be so many variables and all the kinks weren't worked out yet. Besides, I really hadn't explored all there is to know about the silver clay. But thanks to Jan Durkin, one of the founding members of the Western Pennsylvania Metal Clay Guild, we had the opportunity to take a class on copper clay on Sunday from Debra Weld. So I went for it.

Debra is well known for her addition of color to metal. She offered just such a class on Saturday and I would have taken that class too, except for that important factor of money. But on Sunday, when I saw people wearing what they had made on Saturday, I was sorry that I didn't take it.

Oh well, I got to take the copper clay class on Sunday and that was great. We learned lots, made lots of copper pieces and just plain had a good time. It was a fun group to work with and Debra fit right in.

Debra and Jan both took work home to fire. I brought mine with me as I've had the necessary equipment for a year and decided it was time to try it.

Another thing that kept me from using the bronze was the amount of time needed to fire the clay. Copper takes more time than silver but not as long as the bronze. There is no need to ramp the kiln up slowly when firing the copper and once it hits the temperature (sorry, too lazy to go down stairs and look at my notes) the firing time is only 3 1/2 hours. That I can do.

Copper clay only comes in the clay form. But, compared to silver clay it is soooo much cheaper. 100 grams costs around $20. When was the last time we could buy 100 grams of silver clay for $20? Since there is no syringe clay in copper, we had to roll tiny little snakes for our linear elements. Paste had to be made from the lump clay and only lasts a couple of days before it begins to oxidize. It is important to make sure the seams and joins in copper clay are thoroughly joined. Otherwise they might pop apart during the firing. (Hope mine are stable.)

Like silver clay, moisture and pressure are key elements when combining pieces.

I'll probably fire my pieces later this week. First I have to fire my coconut charcoal (which is the best kind for copper clay) before I can fire the copper pieces in it. I made sure I had a special set of tools dedicated to copper only. I don't want to cross contaminate the clay with my silver and ruin anything. I'll be sure to share photos, once the pieces are fired.

The class was wonderful, the instructor was first rate and the people were so much fun. I'm glad I took the plunge.