Three 'A's

On Saturday I ran an introductory workshop for art clay silver.  I am still surprised by the amount of work new students manage to produce in one day.

These are Amber's pieces, all produced from 10g of art clay silver.

These are the pieces made by Angie.

These are Adela's pieces.

Adela came back for a second day and made these two beautiful rings.  The ring with the stone set into the clay has another tiny stone set just to the side - you can just see a glimpse of it.  It was lovely to see that Adela was wearing her earrings when she arrived on the second day!

Teaching

I have had a few new students sharing my studio and producing interesting work in the past couple of weeks.  Firstly Ria and Krista who spent a happy day making pieces in art clay silver followed by a second day learning to enamel onto their pieces.  This was followed a few days later by Emma Mitchell, who already had some experience but came to learn more about enamelling.  She spent a day learning how to grind, wash and apply enamels using a wet laying technique in very thin layers.
I always enjoy teaching and hope that they have all gone away inspired to continue exploring this fascinating medium.

Here is the link to Emma's blog where there are pictures of her work

http://www.silverpebble.me.uk/?p=843

Rachel's project

Rachel's project was inspired by the Gothic.  She has used a wide variety of media and I haven't managed to get pictures of the finished pieces as she took them away to finish off at college.  She has learned to saw, solder, file and polish; enamel on copper and to make lamp worked glass beads (and is a bit of a demon with the torch now).  The bracelet combines textured and enamelled copper panels and is not quite finished in this picture as she has also made a ring that will be attached to it.  She also used faux bone and polymer clay in some of her development work.  For the enamelling on the bracelet she has used a scraffito technique on two of the panels and embedded tiny glass beads into the surface of the enamel on another two.  I hope she will continue to explore these ideas and techniques.

Zara's project

Zara's project had a Japanese inspired theme.  She learned to saw, solder, sand and polish sterling silver as well as making a smaller setting using art clay silver.  She then embedded her original drawings in resin setting them into the pieces she had constructed.  In the second picture she is carefully bringing small bubbles out of the resin.  The pieces in the box are are charm, pendant and brooch taped in so that she could take them home safely.  During the design development process she had also cut out one of the drawings in copper sheet and done some enamelling.  It has been lovely to watch her confidence grow as she has learned.

Sarah enamelling

Sarah finished her college projects yesterday.  She selected an enamel colour by matching one of my samples to glass beads she had already made. This was an enamel colour I had in lump form so, right at the end of her project, she had to learn to grind enamel down from lump.  She applied wires to the surface of her pieces by firstly depletion gilding the silver (to bring fine silver to the surface) and then using the technique developed by my good friend Joy Funnell to add the wires, without using solder.  Sarah then applied two layers of finely ground enamel into the cells she had created.  The finished piece relates very closely to one of the sketches in her book.  She has learned a lot about basic jewellery techniques and I hope she will continue on this journey of discovery.

Students working hard again

It has been another busy day in my studio with Zara, Sarah and Rachel working hard to get their projects done.  I think one more session and they will be finished.  Today there has been a wide variety of things going on including sawing, sanding and polishing, soldering, enamelling and finishing off a couple of pieces in art clay silver.  Here are just a few pictures including my freshly repaired kiln.  My good friend Joy Funnell gave me a replacement door as the handle on my original one had worked loose and I was unable to make it secure.  I am please to say it is now safe and working again!