Changing seasons, changing colours - experiments with bronze

Up until now, I've always worked only in silver clay but for a long time I've had a hankering after the beautiful golden tones of other metals. I started experimenting about a year ago with bronze and copper clays but couldn't get them to fire properly in the kiln. This can be a bit tricky and I'm not the only one who has trouble getting the firing schedule right at the beginning. Luckily, I was only firing test strips and hadn't spent hours working on pieces only to see them break before my very eyes!

This was just some of the failures along the way! Some were more metallic than others - some looked good until you tried to bend them and then they just snapped. I know I don't intent for my jewellery to be bent but it's important to know that a piece is fully sintered.

After reading just about every article and blog on the internet and much messing about with kiln temperatures and ramp times I finally found a schedule that works for me! It's only taken over a year (although to be fair I have done a lot of other things in between trials!)

Wooo Hoooo! My first successful firing tests - strips that can be bent in half with pliers and rods that can be bent when hammered in a vice without braking, splitting or tearing! Now...on to actually try a design - where better to start with than my favourite leaves whose autumn colours inspired this detour into bronze in the first place.

Here are the first leaves - they all look different because I've now been experimenting with how best to finish them. Some have been polished up to a shine and others have been left with a more satin finish. I like them both and the contrast between the two. Now I'm going to leave them sitting around for a while a see how the appearance changes over time as natural patinas occur in the air.

And now I've got it to work - it must be time to make some more! I'm looking forward to combining colours in my work in the future. 

N.B. The clays I was experimenting with were Prometheus Bronze and Goldie Bronze - I think the leaves were all from Prometheus because that's what I had the most of. It will be interesting to see the colour difference (and shrinkage rates)  when I do some with the Goldie Bronze. I noticed that my test strips were quite different colour straight out of the kiln.

Metal-clayers out there - did you have as much trouble getting base metals to fire initially and do you notice colour differences between brands?

The Round the World Blog Hop

Recently Mossy from Silver Moss Jewellery contacted me and asked if I'd like to take part in an around the world blog hop. I'd not heard of it before but the idea behind the Blog Hop is for creative bloggers to write a post based around a few questions. Their answers offer an insight into their creative thoughts and processes. The blog 'baton' is then passed on to another creative and so on...

You can read Mossy's post here. I have to admit to a rather tardy publication of this post - Christmas and New Year rather got in the way......but as I'm now back to (almost) full speed here it is!

So here are the questions - and my answers:

1) What am I working on?

All the custom orders on my bench at the moment are for silver fingerprint pieces. My customers have sent me the fingerprints they want to include and I transfer them to their jewellery. The work needs to be done in stages, so I tend to get all pieces to one stage before moving on to the next. 

I'm also busy building up stock in my Folksy shop again after Christmas - I'm working on a lot of tree of life pieces at the moment.

2) How does my work differ from others in its genre?

No two pieces I make are ever the same! I don't really work in bulk designs - if I'm using gemstones they are often unique shapes which means that I can only ever recreate a similar design. With my wirework trees, the nature of the work means that every piece is different - the stone affects the ways the wires lie and as I twist everything by hand the tension varies which produces differences in the branches. And of course, no two fingerprints are ever the same. Nor are leaves for that matter!

This way of working can make things hard work! I list every item separately in my Folksy Shop so that the picture a customer sees is the piece they are buying (except for fingerprint jewellery or course, which is made to order).

3) Why do I write/create what I do?

I started out making only silver fingerprint jewellery - but of course silver clay is very addictive! I began to experiment with new designs and continue to do so all the time. Most of what I make is inspired by the natural world around me - what better inspiration is there?

Oak Twig Rings

4) How does my writing/creating process work?

I start most new pieces with a sketch of how I want the finished piece to look. Sometimes I create a quite detailed plan but sometimes I just experiment as I go. I can't afford to experiment as much as I'd like though as silver clay is quite expensive! I'm always collecting things when I'm out and about that have interesting shapes and textures that I might use later - I embarrass my children by carrying a collection bag with me everywhere! 

And now I'll pass the baton on to John from The World Outside The Window to answer the same questions. He's a writer rather than an artisan so it should be a bit of a change! In the interest of full disclosure, he also happens to be my husband! So you can imagine us sitting opposite each other working if that helps :)

You can find his blog here: The World Outside the Window

Back to the classroom

It's a bit after the event now (doesn't time fly during the summer holidays!) but last month saw my first foray into the world of teaching.

I'd been invited to run a two day course for Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Summer School, so I diligently packed up my work shop and relocated to a local secondary school.

I have to say that it was a bit strange being back in a science lab again, it was not my favourite subject at school (and yes - labs still look and smell the same)!

I had a great two days with eight lovely and willing students. Over the two days they each made four pieces of jewellery, including a silver leaf and a gemstone tree of life. One of my ladies even made a silver ukelele pendant!

Sadly I was so busy teaching that I forgot to take any photos to show you (maybe next time).

I'm hoping to run some short classes of my own soon, so if you'd be interested in classes in Gloucester then watch this space or sign up for my newsletter here.

To find out more about the Gloucestershire Arts and Crafts Summer School you can find their website at http://www.spanglefish.com/gloucesterartsandcrafts/index.asp

Homemade Potions

Today I've been experimenting with potions! Not in the hubble-bubble toil and trouble way, but with this lavender and chamomile salve.

I've never tried making anything like this before but I'm quite pleased with how it's turned out so far.

This is how I made it:

I gently heated 1 cup of olive oil with 1/2 cup dried chamomile until warm then left it to infuse for 20 mins. Then I took the chamomile out and squeezed out the oil. I added 2 tbsp beeswax pellets and heated the bowl over hot water until the wax melted, then stirred in some lavender essential oil (12 drops) and some tea tree oil (6 drops). I poured it straight away into my cleaned pots and left it too cool.

I'm looking forward to using it and can't wait to experiment with more! I love the smell and the simplicity of the ingredients - no chemical nasties here :)

A tale of Commission......

I often take commissions from clients to design and create a unique piece of jewellery for them, sometimes they know exactly what they want but other times they have an idea that I then need to bring to reality.

I had just such a customer recently - she was interested in the Evenstar pendant featured in the Lord of the Rings films. Now, I couldn't recreate this exact piece for her - that design belongs to the film studio and as such I would infringe their copyright if I were to do so. So we got talking about the piece as it featured in the film (and more importantly where it WASN'T featured in the book!) and she decided that she would rather have a completely new piece based on the book.

Now, where do you start on such a commission? Well, with the book of course ("oh dear, what a shame I guess I'll just have to read it again", I thought to myself with glee) so to the pages of my copy I turned.

If you know me at all, then you will know that I could talk for hours on the intricacies of the plot from Lord of the Rings, but I will not bore you with all the details now. Suffice to say we settled upon using this description of Arwen's pendant,

"a white gem like a star that lay upon her breast hanging upon a silver chain"    

This was a good place to start and left me with plenty of space to add my own ideas, so after lots of thinking and head scratching and crumpled up pieces of paper I settled on this idea:

The design features the impression of real leaves and an 8mm round moonstone cabochon at the centre. The customer loved the design and so I set about making it for her.You can see some of the stages of production along with the finished item in this picture:

I'm happy to say that my customer loved the finished piece - I enjoyed working on it so much that I was sorry to see it go really, it's given me lots of ideas for the future though!