Maynard E. Bunny

I've not worked with metal clay for several weeks now, but yesterday I tried my hand at a different clay.  No I'm not giving up metal clay, just taking a little vacation.

We are on Pine Island, FL taking a little break from the winter weather.  To get to the island one has to drive through a little burgh known as Matlacha.  The buildings on the main road are brightly colored and even though I've never been to Mexico, it reminds me of it.

My favorite Gallery there is the Wild Child Gallery which every so often has artists displaying their craft outside in the courtyard.  It was at one of these that I met Lenea Howe who taught the class I took.

I won't go into a lot of detail about how we made our bunnies but I will share photos of our finished work.  And, say that paper clay feels really nice to work with and it was lots of fun.

Our teacher Lenea Howe with some of her creations.  

Gwen Pobanz from Dallas with her bunny

Pam Carrington from NY with her bunny.

The bunnies.

Mine is the purple bunny.  His name is Maynard E Bunny and he is a Flower Child.  

Paper Clay

Metal clay comes in paper form too.  One brand is more like a piece of leather, while the other brand is more like a sheet of silver.  I think it originally was created to be used in Origami but has since been used other ways.  I've done Origami but not with the clay.     

So far I've used it with paper punches like scrap bookers use.  It can be layered to make thicker pieces that provide a more definite relief.  The paper pieces are pasted onto the metal clay piece using metal clay paste.   Even the scraps left from the paper punch is usable.  I use it to create what I call my "Negative Space" pieces.   The following ring is made using the paper punch and the pendants were made using the scraps that were left from various projects.