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.

Using the photopolymer plate

Once the photopolymer sheet is finished I lightly oil it using olive oil.  I tend to spray the sheet lightly, rub it all over with my fingers which removes any excessive oil and then if it is a particularly deep texture I sometimes brush into the texture with a flat nylon paint brush that I keep especially for this.

Then I can use the sheet just like any other texture plate - usually by putting my roller guides on top of it, the metal clay in between and rolling over firmly in one movement.  If you roll backwards and forwards the clay can shift slightly and you get a blurring or double image so it is important to ensure you do make the roll in one firm action.  Once the clay is rolled down to the thickness of the roller guides it can't get any thinner anyway!  You can use a texture plate on each side of the clay with the roller guides sandwiched in between.

If I am using the plastic back photopolymer sheet I usually flex it slightly to tease up the edge of the clay and remove it.  If I am using the metal backed sheet then I simply tease the edge of the clay up with my thumb and peel it off.  Turn it over the check the imprint.  Then I usually put the clay onto a small piece of non-stick baking parchment so that I can cut out the shape.  Form the piece gently in the usual way, dry and fire.

More photopolymer plates

I have been doing some more work using photopolymer plates to create my own textures.  I originally learned to create these plates in a workshop run by Katie Baum at an art clay conference.  To make my original plates I tended to take a small image and cut a piece of the photopolymer sheet to fit the image, then expose and process the sheet.  What I am now doing is creating a small panel of drawings of patterns to fit the size of the sheet and making a texture plate with a whole variety of patterns and textures on it.

I draw the patters onto thin white card then photocopy them using my computer printer.  I have found that I can create a denser image using the printer on photocopy mode rather then scanning the images in and printing them.  I then print them out onto normal A4 copy paper with the density slightly increased and with the printer set at maximum I print 2 copies of each image onto OHP sheet.  I have found I can just cram 4 images (2 copies of each of 2 patterns) onto a sheet of A4 and that they then fit the size of a sheet of the photopolymer.

Photopolymer plates for art clay silver

For this section of my bracelet I have used a photograph of a turtle carved in stone to create a black and white graphic image which has then been used to make a photopolymer plate. The art clay silver is rolled out to an even thickness (between roller guides). The photopolymer plate is oiled lightly to stop it sticking to the clay and then rolled over the top of the clay slab, again between roller guides to ensure the piece remains an even thickness.

The technique for creating photopolmer plates was taught by Katie Baum of the Art Clay Society at the Art Clay World UK Guild conference in 2008.