Silver Jewelry with Metal Clay Class ~ July 2007

Here we are on the first day ~ eager beavers ready to learn how to make silver from clay. 

Incase you didn't know, the process involves a clay like substance, which is actually silver molecules & a clay binder (rice flour & water).  After you sculpt, stamp, roll, shape...etc. your clay, you can fire it at a certain temperature which centers the silver & burns off the clay binder leaving you with what you formed in pure silver.  There's a bit more to it, but that's the general idea.

We received a baggie full of tiny tools & a this tool bag above that included files, a wire brush, blade, roller & paintbrushes... These things help create, shape & shave the clay pieces into form before they're fired in the kiln. 

This is our instructor, Lyle Rayfield demonstrating

the first project which was stamped earrings. 

One of our projects included finding a leaf of just the right texture & size & painting layers of silver clay onto it.  Mom & I spent a whole morning searching for leaves (that kind of stuff is fun for us). 

Here's mom painting her leaves.  I swear I painted 20 layers or more onto mine, each time waiting for the previous layer to dry... it took half the day.  When it's finished, it's fired inside the kiln & the leaf disintegrates "leaving" a perfectly formed silver leaf (although about 8% smaller).

One lady in our class, Katherine, made this cool fish.  She used a patina (liver of sulfur) on it afterwards & it turned all these amazing shades of blue, purple & pink.  We used the patina on a lot of our projects, but nobody got this kind of color again. 

On the last night, the college organized a gallery show of all the students work.  There are about 8 courses running at the same time from printmaking, to sculpting to glass beadmaking.   Here's a picture of some of our pieces (there was another table of them, but the picture didn't turn out so well).

Here's another class.  They used metalsmithing techniques to make their jewelry.

And some work from the pastel class.

Red Deer is famous for it's weather extremes.  We were sitting around having a glass of wine when this ominous band of clouds rolled in.  Nothing happened, it carried on without a drop of rain but it looked pretty cool.

The dorms we lived in are little condos with 4 rooms in each.  These two, Maureen & Cathy were our roommates.  They're sisters, one living in B.C. & the other in Ontario & they met up here to take a class & visit.  We spent our nights chit chatting about the day's events with them.

Walking to class one morning, we saw this sweet baby bunny eating up the dandelion stems.  He sat there chewing away as we approached him.  I couldn't believe how tame he appeared so I reached for my camera to get a picture & sure enough, at that moment, he hopped off.

Our instructor, Lyle Rayfield & my mom.

Here's all my goodies.  Lyle suggested we each make 13 charms (for each person in the class) & exchange them.  The charm bracelet turned out lovely & is a nice memento from the week.  The rest of the pieces are what I made in class - some with patina, gold, & enamel.

My mom & I ended up buying the kiln we used in class & a bunch of the silver clay.  We are going to turn a small portion of her art studio into a metal clay area.  I imagine we'll incorporate the silver with the glass beads down the road, so stay tuned.

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