copper clay

10 Jul 2012

Bringing copper clay to life

Firstly, I must apologise for the delay since my last post, but between health issues, our annual ‘summer’ holiday (I use the word advisedly, it didn’t feel much like summer in the storms) and being kept busy with some lovely custom orders, time has simply got away from me.

As I promised that I’d post this subject some time ago and I’ve already prepared the photographs, I may as well continue and complete the post, even though some considerable time has passed since I said I’d be doing so.

I’m going to show the many stages it takes to make a jewellery set like this from copper clay.

As previously posted, I’ve really been enjoying working with copper clay, a somewhat new adventure for me. I resisted for some time, until I felt I’d mastered sufficient skills with actual solid metal before taking myself off on a tangent. It’s an amazing medium, it allows you to achieve results that would be either very difficult, time consuming or even impossible with solid metal forms. I read an article by an experienced jeweller that said she used PMC for things that she simply couldn’t do by other means – as a supplement to metal, not instead of. So that has been my thinking with it thus far. To try things that I couldn’t otherwise accomplish. Hark at me, like I’m an expert. Far from it, I’m learning at a very steep rate and still have a long way to go.

Whilst it’s amazingly good fun to work with and you can do really interesting things with it (and I’ve only scratched the surface so far) – I don’t feel it’s a short cut to quick or easy results either. It still takes a lot of work to get good results. I suspect in my case some of that is related to the fact that I’m torch firing and not using a kiln – it takes longer to fire the piece in that each one has to be done individually and I suspect that the firescale on the copper I’m using is possibly deeper – and more time-consuming to remove too.

I thought I’d show some work-in-progress photographs of the various stages that a piece has to go through, not as a tutorial in any way (I’m simply not qualified yet to try and impart information on this subject), but purely as an insight as to how much work a particular finished piece represents. The particular design of the pieces indicated is a rather simple technique, pieces that incorporate sculpting and assembly of components can take much longer.

Most of the photographs are of a particular earring and pendant set, although some of them were taken retrospectively with another piece as I simply decided later that I’d missed some stages worth including.

The clay is rolled out to the desired thickness on a non-stick sheet, in this case, using some sheets of plastic as my spacers.

I imprinted the sheet of clay with my chosen texture – in this case, a spiral I formed with a piece of wire.

The shapes are then cut out of the sheet and shaped and formed, as desired, whilst still moist and pliable. They then need some time to dry enough for further handling. I choose to do some of the further work before the pieces dry to the stage of becoming brittle. At this stage it is certainly more clay and less metal (despite the rather incongruous sensation of being cold and metallic to the touch) and I liken it to dry pasta – firm and robust enough to handle, but you could just break it with your fingers if you chose, so it does need some care. I like to drill my holes and refine the shape a little whilst it’s dry to the touch, but not dry enough to fire – it simply seems more brittle to me by the time it reaches that stage.

The left hand earring piece as I formed it initially from the moist clay and the right hand one is after some filing, rounding of corners and refining the shape and surface – as you smooth it, it does take on a more metallic appearance.

At this stage, I leave them on wire mesh to dry really thoroughly for at least a couple of days. I’ve had some pieces crack or pop during firing and the manufacturers advise me this is the rapid vapourising of any tiny water molecules remaining within the clay as I bring it to the flame to fire it. I’m not convinced that moisture is entirely to blame for all my cracks (and I’ve made some modifications in my workflow to address the issue), but I think it must certainly have been in the piece that popped loudly and broke away surface pieces as soon as it got hot.

I fire each piece individually with the torch, in accordance with the recommendations for the particular product I’m using. I can manage either a single large piece or a couple of smaller ones in each firing. I work in reduced light so that I can monitor the colour of the metal and the flame.

After firing and quenching, my lovely smooth piece of clay looks pretty terrible – the firescale on the surface will need removing – and this is perhaps the most tedious stage of the process, although some trial and error has established a pretty good routine for me to get it clean again with minimal elbow grease. First I pickle and then tumble the pieces extensively to bring out the shine of the metal now revealed after burning off the organic binders.
Of course, the metal clay pieces are only components and I also need to make the accompanying metal parts too – in this case, I decided to go for some fancy feature earwires with a co-ordinating decorative spiral. I also make all my own jump rings and clasps for finished pieces.

The earrings are as such now complete and I’ve antiqued them to bring out the lovely aged warmth of time-worn copper, which is my own personal preferred finish for copper. I’m next going to add some colour to this particular set and after some earlier trial and error, had decided that antiquing first and then applying the colour gave the most pleasing end result. Before colouring, I removed the copper clay charms from the earwires to protect them.

I’d originally had it in mind to combine the copper clay pieces with enamels, but whilst researching types and materials, came across the US made product Gilders Paste, which sounded even better for what I had in mind. It’s a solid opaque and intensely coloured wax type substance that comes in little tins and looks for all the world like old-fashioned shoe polish. It can be used and applied just about any way you can think of – you can do anything from rubbing it on with your finger to airbrushing it on as a wash mixed with a solvent. I decided that a short cut-down and very inexpensive paintbrush allowed me to stipple it well into the recessed pattern areas, giving good coverage.

It’s specifically for colouring metal, but can be used on many other suitable surfaces too. I’ve found that it seems to work very well on the less metallic and shiny parts of the clay that were impressed and therefore not as subsequently highly burnished smooth. Still maintaining some of the porosity of the original clay texture gave it a good key to adhere to. I think for a good covering on the metal surface, it would need roughening to give it a better key and would lose some of the metallic sheen and therefore may not be quite as attractive for the effect I was after. On solid metals, I found that it scratched off too easily, but it adheres well to the rougher texture of unpolished clay areas. Solid copper would need a texture for key to work reliably – but I have some ideas for that too.

Once allowed to dry for a number of hours, the piece can be rubbed clean and finally polished – the Gilders Paste is robust once dry and should last well in wear. On these pieces, I stippled both a verdigris turquoise with a darker metallic green to give the appearance of patina but I didn’t want a solid single flat colour. The photo below was taken between wiping off the excess from the surface before fully dry and the final buffing and cleaning.

Some finished copper clay pieces using Gilders Paste for colour:


And finally . . .

As I’ve been typing this, with the TV on in my office, the weather man declared that some places in Britain today (the 10th of July, may I remind you) were actually colder than they were on Christmas Day! So you can see why I had some reservations about declaring our most recent holiday to be our summer one!

18 Apr 2012

Nursing duties and more copper clay working

Just coming to make a new post and seeing my last one about ‘maybe that was summer’, it looks like that might have been the case. It’s funny that we were walking outside on that especially lovely day in shirt sleeves and finding spots in the shade for a rest and cooling drink, yet we went out for a walk on Sunday and donned thermal gloves, scarves and hats and were still jittering in the bitter cold wind.

I realise that the earlier unscheduled warmth and sunshine was the day out of place, but recent much colder weather has somewhat thrown both into sharp relief.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.
Hand sculpted pendant made in copper clay with leaves and buds.

I don’t have much exciting to report or interesting to show you at present, my husband underwent long-overdue incisional hernia repair surgery (major, life-saving surgery a few years ago hadn’t healed well and needed fixing) a couple of weeks ago, so we’d planned for a period of inactivity, had stocked up with food any any other supplies we anticipated needing and settled down for a short period of daytime TV and hunkering under the duvet on the settee recuperating. Well, he did, I was destined for passing things out of reach, the helping on with socks and taking over any household duties involving lifting, stretching or bending – and those will continue for a little while yet.

Copper clay earrings with twisted oval dangles imprinted with a raised flower design and hanging from matching feature oval earwires.

He’s recovered amazingly well; it would appear that general anaesthetics have developed somewhat since last time either of us had surgery and he was up awake, looking forward to his lunch and texting me as much less than an hour after he came out of surgery. It’s also true to say that he wasn’t quite so chipper once all the painkilling injections they had given him had worn off. But still, he was significantly better than ether of us had anticipated and has in fact already returned to work – supposedly on light, desk-bound duties – a week earlier than we expected and planned for. I’m not sure I’m thrilled about that, but he doesn’t seem to be taking any harm from it.

Antiqued copper necklace wrapped with molten buds and copper clay disc flowers.


So, aside from my nursing duties, I haven’t done anything very exciting lately, my productivity was somewhat reduced by having him at home. If only because I actually had someone to talk to and have a brew with. But I did at least remember to stop and eat lunch every day, which I don’t always do; sometimes until it’s almost too late to be worth bothering.

Earrings cold forged from a heavy gauge of copper wire, hammered and drilled and wrapped with a copper clay disc flower and molten bud. They will co-ordinate with the necklace above.

I’ve been working on photographing and listing recent creations and finishing some of the projects I had started. I occasionally have to force myself to do such tasks before I make something new – I reward myself with ‘making time’ when I reach key targets in my listing process – which when my head is overflowing with ideas or I’m dying to get on with something in particular, is quite a good motivator.

Antiqued copper clay earrings featuring a twisted flower button bead.

I’ve done some more work with the copper clay, as you can see from the photographs included in the post. I had a conversation with the technical support people who import the clay, as there were some aspects of my results that I either wasn’t happy with or didn’t understand why things were happening. One major consideration was seemingly drying time – the packet instruction was to file and fire it when dry, without any indication of how long that might take. Their web site wasn’t much more specific, but I’m delighted that as a result of our conversation, they very quickly made their instructions more appropriate, which I’m sure will help others like me just starting working with the material.

Entirely hand crafted earrings featuring polymer clay faux pebbles and copper clay flower dangles.

On small and especially thin pieces, they actually feel and appear dry within a few hours – later the day you’ve worked on them – especially if you keep them somewhere warm and turn them often, as I do. Although things look and handle as dry quite quickly, I’d always left them at least overnight to ensure that they were properly dry throughout.

Copper clay and hand made glass bead spotty earrings. I only had this single pair of matching beads amongst an assortment I bought and I’ve got them out several times looking for ideas with them and as soon as I saw how well the spots could be highlighted from this spotty texture sheet used on the clay, I knew the right partnership had just been waiting to find each other.

But it transpires this simply isn’t enough – they need a couple of days at least, any tiny molecules of unseen moisture remaining can evaporate and explode out of the clay as you first heat the piece – giving rise to cracks and in one case, quite an impressive pop which removed a section of the surface. In that case, it had dried for at least 36 hours, so I clearly need to leave them a decent time before being tempted to fire them. Although I’ve since fired pieces I initially made a couple of weeks ago and the same problems still occur so it’s not the only factor, maybe it’s just the nature of the medium, that some surface disturbance is inevitable when torch firing? It sounded like I was otherwise doing everything right – although my enjoyment of twisting the clay into more interesting shapes might be partially to blame.

This is the piece that popped alarmingly when fired, thankfully mostly on the back, but I’m not sure how I feel about the finished item anyway, so it may well remain in my personal collection.

The rest of their advice seemed to boil down to taking a course and learning to do it properly! Nah, where’s the fun in that!

26 Mar 2012

Maybe that was summer?

Here in the UK we’ve just had an unseasonably early warm spell – wall to wall sunshine with lovely warm temperatures and the summery feel was further enhanced by the start of British Summer Time when the clocks are put forward, giving us longer evenings in which to enjoy it all.

It does tend to lull you into thinking that summer has actually arrived, but the ice on the car this morning soon put that idea to bed. But it did present an ideal opportunity to make a start on my post-winter tidy of the garden and start preparing it for summer and we took the opportunity yesterday to take a proper day off and escape to the Lake District for a day in one of our most favourite places.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I love this particular spot, the lighting is always lovely as the path meanders through the trees, but it’s hard to do it justice; sometime you just have to be there.

We usually spend a long week over the Easter period up there and always very much look forward to it through the winter months, but this year we’re having to fore-go it for a variety of reasons; but largely because my husband has to undergo surgery shortly and they’ve scheduled him for next week, just before the Easter bank holiday weekend.

The sun was rather hazy initially as the early morning mist burnt off the sky, but through the trees that did give everything a lovely glow.

In order to minimise the time off work at a busy time of year and to protect his regular salary, we’ve decided that taking some of his recovery period from his holiday allowance is a better use of the time on this particular, unusual, occasion.

So, mindful of not being mobile for some time and not getting such an opportunity again for a few weeks and the really glowing weather forecast, we set our alarms early on Sunday morning, packed a picnic and headed to one of our favourite spots along Thirlmere near Keswick. The roads were decently busy on the way up and we expected a lot of other people to have had the same idea and thought it might possibly be busy, but we pretty much had that particular place to ourselves. In fact, we didn’t pass another soul on our favourite lake-shore walk – we usually pass at least a couple of local dog-walkers, who love that spot as much as we do.

As the afternoon drew on, the light had a fabulous golden golden glow.

So, it couldn’t really have been much better for us. If I’m really picky, the sunshine was hazier than it had been the day before when we worked in the garden and the modest spring cold I have was seemingly further irritated by tree pollen, but on balance, it was a pretty fabulous day. We did all of our favourite things – walked amongst trees, listening to the birds, took a few photos, ate a good lunch sat outside in sunshine, snoozed a little, read a little, walked some more, ate some more and headed home to a great nights sleep after all that fresh air. For me, life doesn’t get much better.

The day had started with a decent breeze, but by early evening, it had either dropped or changed direction and Thirlmere was beautifully calm and the reflections were quite fabulous.

Further work with Copper Clay this week:

I’m really enjoying my continuing tinkering with copper clay this week – it has been a steep learning curve and it is evident that my tried and tested routines and methods with copper sheet and wire will need some revision when using the clay for components, but it does add a lot of new facets to what I can achieve and opens up a whole host of ideas to try – like my mind doesn’t already overflow with more ideas than I have time to make reality.

Copper clay flat ‘button’ beads given an uneven shape and a light imprint of a flower design, double wrapped on a balled headpin.
21 Mar 2012

New adventures in Precious Metal Clay

As mentioned in my last post, I was about to start tinkering with precious metal clay – copper clay specifically.  I have resisted somewhat so far for a few reasons; firstly, I wanted to ensure I’d already got a good grasp of basic metalwork before I went off on that particular tangent, I felt it was important for me to understand metal fairly well in order to get the best from it.

 My collection of first finished pieces using PMC/copper clay.   Two textured heart pendants with earrings, a ‘painted’ leaf pendant with bail, a fancy beadcap over a teardrop shaped glass bead, copper washers separating faceted carnelians, plain bead caps with large labradorite beads and a ring featuring little leaves and bud.
A highly polished and textured heart pendant and a little leaf pendant made by painting clay paste over a real leaf and adding a bail – which I did between layers of paste to integrate it fully on the back.

Secondly, I felt the silver clays were too expensive to just tinker with and until recently, copper clay, which I felt would work well alongside my other work, could only be kiln fired – and that wasn’t going to be practical just to try it out.

But when I saw a new copper clay on the market that could be torch fired, it felt like a good time to at least give it a try.  I already had a series of designs and ideas in my sketch book, as well as components to supplement other work that I just couldn’t buy or easily make by other methods.  So I hoped that it would work as well as the ideas I had in my mind and having never even touched any PMC before, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect and although I’d done a lot of reading, planning and thinking, I did open the packet for the first time with a few little butterflies in my tummy.

Rings are one of the areas I want to pursue more as I have all sorts of ideas for them – but I need to make several first to work out the correct sizing allowing for shrinkage etc.
I’m somewhat disappointed with how the ring looks in the photographs at this scale, as it looks very polished and pretty cute in reality and the photos really don’t flatter the texture of the copper clay at all.

I perhaps should have started with a few simple shapes or test pieces, but I had so many ideas filling my head, that I just dived in on working on something from the outset – I think I personally learn best and am most productive when I actually make something proper that I fully expect to finish and to work properly.

I’ve never been able to find solid copper bead caps the right sort of size for many of the things I make, but using copper clay will allow me to make my own to fit perfectly.  These are simple and quite small ones – the biggest drawback is the time they take to fire properly and the necessity to only work on a couple at a time when torch firing.

It proved to be a very steep learning curve, from how quickly the clay dries, to how brittle and easily damaged it is in clay form and how long it takes to fire and sinter properly and how bloody hard it is to get the firescale off!  Funnily enough, some pieces come clean with the first dunk in hot pickle, others resist everything from repeated pickling, tumbling and wire brushing and had to be hand polished clean.

This fancy bead cap was made from a sketch I drew some time ago – and proved a steep learning curve.  I fired it according to the packet instructions and I don’t think this was long enough as the lovely little feature collar I gave it chipped when first tightening the wire wrap against it (I took it apart, trimmed the collar down and re-made), suggesting that it was too brittle and not sintered for long enough.  I’d be afraid that the points might break off, so this will remain in my personal collection.

The oxidisation process is a little different too – I’ve oxidised and antiqued very many pieces of copper – but the PMC doesn’t take it evenly, or darkly and the LoS solution goes cloudy and pink making it hard to even find small pieces in it.  And some pieces were almost polished clean again after a quick tumble.  So that part clearly needs more thought too – having thought that I’d settled on a very reliable method that always gave good results, clearly PMC copper will need a slightly different technique from raw metal.

I absolutely love working with it – it’s nowhere near as messy as I was expecting, having seen many illustrated tutorials where the copper clay artist illustrated had stained brown fingers and all their tools were stained and messy too.  I found it much cleaner than I was anticipating and it didn’t even really stick much to anything other than itself – it worked very much like polymer clay, but needs to be worked quickly.  I found that for the most part, I didn’t need to add any sort of release to my tools.

I like that I can refine the shapes at the clay stage and get it close to a finished surface with much less effort than with the finished metal.  I like that I can either just roll it back up and start over if it doesn’t work, or grind it up and reconstitute it if I don’t like it once dried – so there’s much less wastage than other techniques.  It drills and carves easily when dry and I’m really looking forward to putting some of my design ideas into practice.  I’m already delighted with how it’s worked and can’t wait to make some more pieces.

These earrings are perhaps my favourite finished piece – I made the undulating textured washers specifically for a design I had already made other polymer clay components for, but when fiddling with them to see how else I could use them, I loved how they looked with these Carnelian faceted rondelles, so I’ll need to make some more for my other project.

The one thing that I’m not entirely happy with is that it doesn’t photograph well.  The clay-like texture persists on the surface a little, even after firing and polishing.  When seeing even highly polished pieces in photographs, little speckles of texture dominate every surface, especially when seen on-screen so much larger than life-size – as tends to be the case when showing jewellery items in photographs.  I was very happy with the finish I got in some of the pieces after a little polishing, some before and some after firing, yet was bitterly disappointed with how they looked in the photographs, so this might need a different approach too.  So very much to learn, but it will be a lot of fun to do so.