Playing with paper clay

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time playing around with the art clay silver paper type.  I have used it for a few things in the past but never really enjoyed handling it or exploited its particular properties.  I have used it to cut patterns and create an overlay but yesterday finally realised it would be perfect for making the tiny curled flowers I used to make using copper shim.

Anyway here are some of the bits I made yesterday which were more successful than any previous attempts although I have no idea what I will do with them.

I have created the texture by putting the fresh paper clay between a folded sheet of paper with a piece of fabric and feeding it through my rolling mill.  You have to be careful not to get the pressure too tight or it causes wrinkles and creases which then become weak spots in the sheet.  I have then cut out the pieces using a couple of craft punches and twisted and fired them, following the firing instructions in the packet.

They don't have a great deal of strength but were polished in my magnetic polisher without any ill effects.

I will have to order some more of the paper type now so that I can carry on with this experimentation.

Bead using the photopolmer plate

Here is a partly made bead in art clay silver.  I have rolled out a thin sheet of clay over my new photopolymer plate.  I then moisten the back of the clay to give it maximum flexibility while I drape it over a form.  I leave it on a warming plate to dry and when I is dry roll out another sheet, place the part made bead onto it and trim it around with fine nail scissors.  I have found that cutting the sheet with scissors creates less distortion of the edges of the clay sheet than trying to trim it with a knife or blade.  I am in the process of constructing a series of irregularly shaped beads for a bracelet.  I drill the holes once the clay bead is fully formed and bone dry, just prior to firing.

Ready for second firing

In the top and the left hand side pieces I have added fine silver wire and tiny round silver balls of fine silver to the surface of the fired art clay silver using silver overlay paste in order to create cells into which I can later add enamel.

The lower right hand piece has been water etched to create the cells.

After drying thoroughly these will be re-fired in the kiln at 800 degrees centigrade