Bronze Clay

Vernon’s sister and brother-in-law have been here visiting. We’ve gone to fair, and seen some country, and met up with relatives, and photographed old photographs, but the one thing we’ve always tried to do during her visits, is, we do a craft together. This year Cindy brought the craft. For years she has worked with metal clay, making jewelry. I have many examples of her talent. Victoria and I were lucky enough to give it a shot.

Metal clay is a medium that combines metal (in this case, bronze) with an organic binder. It is much like working with polymer clay, but it must be kept damp. After the piece is made, it is fired in a kiln which burns away the organic binder and leaves you with a bronze piece. I decided to make a pendant. Victoria made earrings while I was busy tie dyeing with her kids! Here’s how it began…

After sketching out my design, clay was rolled out and sliced around my pattern.

The basic design is set… now for some texturing…

Out of focus, but you can see the different textures I tried to give the different layers of landscape.

Then I started creating a tree to go over my landscape.

Filling. Strengthening. Sanding. Grinding.

It all had to come together by 6pm because we’d invited everyone to supper tonight. I finally quit fiddling with it about 5:55!
Cindy will take it home and fire it in a kiln and then mail it back to me for finishing and polishing. It was fun to do and now there’s the anticipation of how it will look when fired. Obviously, this will be continued!