First Friday Freebie!

Yes siree, it's that time again! First Friday and I've got 2 bronze pieces and 2 copper pieces up for grabs. The larger pieces are just under 1", the lotus is a little over 1/2" and the little bronze button bitty has never been measured.

This is open to everyone, anywhere in the world. All you have to do is leave a comment. Spread the word if you like, in anyway you'd like, if you want extra chances. Just be sure to come back sometime and tell me what you did. I'll randomly select a winner next Friday so you've got an entire week to work out your winning strategy.

I am now off to the shower to get ready to see the opening of my friends exhibition. I have spent the last 2 days in bed with a terrible cold and that shower will be my salvation. Perhaps everyone elses as well. I slept 18 hours yesterday. I didn't know it was possible to sleep 18 hours. But I have been awake long enough to read all of your comments about the bunnies and your bunny stories. Thanks so much, it's been a bright spot for me!

Have a fantastic weekend!!!!

Gingko Leaves and Making Molds

I love gingko leaves. Other than having a very cool shape in my opinion, they are super cool because the trees are considered a living fossil and have no known living relatives in the plant world. Modern gingkos date back to the Permian, 270 million years. In Japan, it was often planted north of Buddhist temples as a symbol of immortality because of its longevity. There is even a gingko tree there that is estimated to be 800 years old and I’ve read that one gingko was the first tree to grow back after the bombing of Hiroshima. The gingko is one amazing tree, a true survivor.

A gingko leaf was among the first of the stamps I carved years ago for use with my pottery many years ago. I’ve updated the design a bit for use at a smaller scale with bronze and copper clay. Beth, over at Hint, showed us how she uses her art work made into stamps for molding her silver clay charms. You can see the video she made here. Actually, if you haven’t, you should check out her “behind the scenes” series which gives a lot of great detail on her process.

I use a similar process to Beth for molds, except that I don’t use the stamp itself as a mold. I use it to make a model and then make a mold from that. There are a lot of reasons why I work this way. But in fact it boils down to, yes I will admit it, I am a control freak and bronze and copper clay seem to be very particular in how they get handled. And for me, this method works pretty well.

So here’s a little 8 step instructional (is that a word?)

1) Tools. My tools for making the mold are simple. I’ve got a cookie cutter, a stamp made from my little sketch, a lump of conditioned polymer clay, and a rolling thingy with a thickness gauge on the ends.

2) I roll out a thin thickness of polymer clay and press that into the rubber stamp.

3) This picks up a raised pattern of the gingko leaves. I like bas relief. I almost never use impressed designs. That’s just me.

4) For this particular design, I used the burnishing tool to add detail to the gingko leaves. I like the burnishing tool because it’s got a very fine round tip and I can get quite a smooth line out of it without undercuts. Once, I’m satisfied with the piece I bake the model in the oven according to the directions. This, by the way, is the only thing I know how to do with polymer clay. I do love this stuff for how it picks up detail.

5) Once the model is cool, I use 2 part RTV compound to make a flexible silicon mold. This time I used the compound from Hobby Lobby. It is not my favourite, but what I had available. Cool Tools has a very good RTV compound but I didn’t have any and I wanted to do this right now.

6) This stuff uses equal parts of the yellow and white, and equal for me is what looks sort of equal. That seems to work. It gets kneaded together until there are no swirls of white in it. That is important. I know from experience that you can not skimp on this step.

7) My little clay model is stuck down on my work surface with a dab of polymer clay. Then the RTV compound is pressed over the model. The directions say to let it set up for 20 minutes. I usually let it set up for an hour, even overnight.

8) Once the RTV compound is cured, I pop out the model and voila! There is the mold that I can now use with the bronze and copper clays. This mold is just a wee bit over an inch in size.

A little note on rubber stamps. I’ve used a number of different companies to have them made. But this time, I used rubberstamps.net, as suggested by Beth. Now I’ve usually been statisfied with the stamps I’ve had made. But hands down, these are the best stamps ever. The detail is incredible and the cuts are sharp. My koi was made by a different company and if you look closely it just does not have the same level of crispness as the gingko stamp. The secret? They laser cut their stamps. They cost a little more but I think it’s worth it and it saves me a lot of time in the modeling process. Thanks Beth! This is a huge improvement in my studio practice.

But the very best part of this whole process is I get to wear these very attactive, very stylish glasses from the Dollar Store. Tres chic, no?

Products of Puttering

As you know from my last post, I spent yesterday in a delightfully list free day. Part of that was spent 'puttering,' a woefully underated state of being. Some of my puttering involved using some stamps I had made of my drawings. Beth at Hint, recently posted about how she makes fine silver jewelry components from molds of her own drawings. Well, I'm not really one to draw, but I do doodle. In fact doodling seems to be one of my best things. I don't keep a journal but I do keep a file of scraps of paper that I've put little pictoral thoughts on. What you see here are koi fish that I can't get enough of, and the lotus I drew based on the batik stamp I've been using in pottery. I use a little different method than Beth does, but more on that later.

I know koi and lotus are pretty out of step with Northern Hemispher seasons. But I find both images quite timeless, even seasonless. Couple that with having spent many years in Australia, where right now I'd be thinking spring thoughts, well this is what came out. In Australia, it is common practice to keep koi and often that involves keeping aquatic plant life like the lotus. So these 2 images just seemed a natural pairing. And I love koi. For fish, they are wonderfully affectionate. OK, maybe that stretches the truth. But if you've never done this and have the opportunity, put your fingers into a koi pond and most likely they will come up to nibble on your fingers. Wonderful!

These are the drawings my bronze and copper pieces were made from. I was quite skeptical of whether these would translate into useable molds. The koi in particular has a lot of detail and moving that detail down to a bit more than 1/2 inch size was a bit daunting.

But, these metal clays pick up an amazing amount of detail Yippeeee!

Cheers, LeAnn

Copper Pieces

But first....where did the time go? It's been cool here, finally, and I've spent a lot of time in the studio. It seems like only yesterday that I showed you all photos of the new pots. I'd love to respond to each and every comment but you have once again just stunned and amazed me with all of your support and truly generous words. Thank you one and all!

A couple of things though. A few of you wondered about my kiln and it's size for large work. Well the shameful truth is I am a kiln hoarder. I have 4 kilns, ranging in size from teeny tiny to one I can fire things up to 26 inches tall. The big one only gets used a few times a year and is mostly likely a waste of space. But it was my first kiln so I hang onto it for nostagic reasons. Yes, you can fall in love with a kiln, a big ugly kiln.

Several of you commented on the Arts & Crafts feel of some of the pots. Well, I just could not be more pleased with that. I hadn't actually thought of those pots that way. But the Arts & Crafts period, both British and American is my favourite design period. Hands down, top favourite. In fact I live in a bungalow of sorts, built in 1928. I just sort of gravitate to all things Arts & Crafts and it tickles me pink that some of that feel is coming through my pottery without even trying.
I made these pieces out of copper clay a few weeks ago and forgot about them. It's that where did the time go thing I have going on right now. I think I buried them in my other things because I wasn't too sure of the patina on them. There's no bright copper feel to them but now that I get them back out again, I like the old coin feel they have. And speaking of copper clay. This stuff is fantastic to work with. It is like butter compared to the crunchy toast feel and working of the bronze clay.

I'm off to work on some more of the metal clay pieces. I've got a couple of new designs in the works and tonight seems like the night to just dive into it.

Cheers, LeAnn

Playing with Copper Clay

Six little copper clay pieces fresh from the kiln. Well not actually fresh. I got after them with a wire brush straight away as I had not one jot of patience to photo and show you what they look like fresh. These are pieces that have only been cleaned. There's no patina on them and I am quite liking the surface as it is. The copper has a very mellow glow to it fresh like this. I'm going to hang onto them for a few weeks to see how they change now that they're in the air. I'm quite chuffed with how these came out, especially after my last disastrous firing.



All but the piece in the top left of the photo were made in press molds. That top left one was made by rolling out clay, pressing it on to a texture plate, and then cutting it out. A few notes on the experience:



1) This clay had been in the fridge opened for about 6 weeks. It came out of the fridge just as fresh and workable as when I put it in. To store it, I wrapped it in plastic wrap which I carefully smoothed all of the wrinkles out of. I then wrapped it in another layer and popped the whole thing into a zip lock bag and squeezed out the air. I then put the whole works into the smallest Rubber Maid container I could find. Maybe that's storage over kill, but the clay came out fresh and moist without any tiny speck of oxidation on it.



2) My experience is that copper clay is a lot easier to work with than the bronze clay, so far. The copper is smooth as butter and the bronze is a bit grainier. I've only used the moist clay and have not tried the powdered clay. I'm just too lazy to mix up the powdered form.



3) I cut off just the amount of clay that I thought I'd need for each piece. The rest I wrapped and put into the container which was kept in a little ice bath. That's a Cool Tools tip, I believe. The last time I just left the unused portion out on the table wrapped. The ice bath worked pretty well to keep the clay workable compared to last time.



4) I sprayed the off cuts of clay with distilled water and wrapped them up in plastic for a few minutes to rehydrate. They got pretty mushy in there but I followed Cindy's advise and rolled them in between sheets of plastic. Great tip! The clay freshened up like magick! I could roll the fresh off the block clay without plastic on a plastic cutting surface. I did use a little dab of olive oil on my fingers and the work surface. Kneading the fresh clay to condition wasn't too bad. Actually a lot easier than wedging porecelain.

5) The largest piece started out as a 1.5" disk. One of the problems with copper clay,bronze too, is that it can warp and needs to be dried quickly. I have a dehydrator that I used for my pieces and the none of them including the large piece warped. No flipping the pieces as they dry evenly top and bottom. Not even the large piece warped at all.

6) I fired the kiln exactly according to the package instructions. Ten o'clock pm, kiln on, off to bed. Lovely, to wake up to cool , finished pieces!

7) 21.4% shrinkage. So prepare to work large with this stuff.

The package of bronze in the fridge is next. You know there are several strange studio things stored in the fridge. I've a house full of family staying this weekend. For that matter, 30 or so people coming for a B-Day party. Do you think anyone will notice this stuff? Hope nobody eats any of it. I'm thinking maybe I should hide it all in the back of the fridge. Nobody goes there. The back of the fridge is always the most dangerous fridge zone.

Alchemy Gone Awry

Iccckkkk.....I debated with myself whether or no to post this disaster. I fired these a couple of days ago according to the firing schedule I used for the first test batch of bronze clay. But things went way a miss of the mark. I didn't control the firing schedule as well. I overshot the mark on temperature in the kiln. A patient person would have just let everything cool off and started over on the first phase of firing. So what you see here is bronze pieces that did not fully lose their organic binding material before they went to temperature (actually over a bit). What you see is the product of impatience.

But a couple of pieces came out OK. The one on the upper right of the first frame is made from copper clay. It fired beautifully! On the bottom left is one of the bronze pieces that are alright. Bit of LOS and scrubbing with steel wool and these pieces are fine.

Conclusions? Well it seems the copper clay is much more forgiving than the bronze clay. Will I keep pursuing the bronze? You bet. I love a challenge! And I love the colour of the bronze.