Sunday, January 9, 2011

metal clay bird

quick sketch
I only found out about metal clay very recently. Its brilliant! It is clay made of very small particles of precious metals mixed with an organic binder and water. This week I tried PMC pro which is the silver clay. You shape it like any kind of modelling clay and when its fired  the binder burns away and you are left with o.999 pure silver!
As my first project I made a bird and flower pendant. You can fire PMC pro on a gas burner at home so it was super easy. I would definitely want to do more but 25 grams of silver clay costs $58 so its quite an expensive hobby. Bronze and copper clays cost about the same but need to be fired in a kiln. 10 grams of gold cost 600 Dollars! Ouch. I still have more left from the pack I bought so I will post more soon but here is my first try. What do you think?

Bird drying in clay form

All fired and polished

7 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I have been tempted to buy PMC for a couple of years now. I think it may time! I've never heard of firing silver clay on a gas burner. How do you do it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! Only silver clay can be fired on a gas stove top. See instructions here: http://www.nmclay.com/PMC/firing.htm#stove
    I also have the book: Magical Metal Clay Jewelery by Sue Heaser. Its really good at explaining all the techniques and tools. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very nice. If I had a gas burner it'd be the perfect gift for my wife to play with!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love your birdie! I bookmarked it and keep looking at it! I just started working with metal clay, too, and it is addicting.

    I love the personality of your bird. Eyes closed and tush up, super job.
    Kathy. YorkAvenueStudio.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. its so beautiful!! I love it :o

    Oh and by the way I got a package of 25 AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL Christmas cards from a certain generous illustrator....

    THANK YOU :) I love them all. I can't wait for Christmas to come around again so I can send them out to people :D

    ReplyDelete