These two little pendants are made from Precious Metal Clay. I’ve had the clay for almost a year, but was a bit afraid to make anything with it in case I ruined it. Janet (the silversmithing tutor) said that if I wanted to make something at home and bring it in, she’d show me how to fire it. I very gratefully took her up on the offer, and here are the results.
The pendants were made very simply by pushing a rubber stamp into the rolled-out clay. They’ve been through the barrel polisher, but I need to get into the indentations with a brash brush to bring up the shine. Another technique I’ve read about is to push polymer clay into the pendant, to add a bit of colour.
The silver blob is what happens when you melt silver clay completely to a liquid. I wanted to do that with the leftovers, so that I could see what the various stages of melting look like. Theoretically this should help me to avoid disaster in the future.
Sadly it didn’t help me to avoid this little disaster!
This is what happens when you’re firing your metal clay piece from the back (so you don’t squash the bail), but you let it get a little bit too hot. The honeycomb texture on this leaf is because I accidentally melted it ever so slightly into the firing block. Oops.
Unfortunately there’s not a great deal I can do about that, but I can at least clean it up with the brass brush and see how noticeable it is when the whole thing’s nice and shiny. Such a shame, because the delicate texture of the leaf was beautiful!
My next step is to book myself onto one of Janet’s Precious Metal Clay courses. I think I need a little bit more help…