(sorry, sorry, had to brag!)
I discovered the wonders of something a lot closer to home (or well, from Japan). It's called Precious Metal Clay and is pretty awesome stuff. It's essentially miniscule specks of silver (or copper or gold) suspended in organic binders that give it the consistency of clay. It's an air-drying clay, but not nearly as sticky as epoxy clays. You can shape it just like other clay and then fire it (I've been using a butane torch), the binders burn away and leave 99.9% pure silver--or fine silver, which actually has a higher silver content than sterling.
My first impressions were...frustrating at best. The clay seemed to crack and fall apart the second I took it out of the packet, but eventually I realised this was because I'd been using too much oil to coat my hands with (seriously, less is definitely more here). Once I had that sorted out, nothing could stop me and the creative juices have been flowing ever since!
Here's a set of earrings that were inspired by the beautiful flowers I saw in Tobago:
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| I used PMC for the flowers themselves and fine silver wire for the stamens. The posts are sterling |
The main problem with PMC is the price. As the clay is almost 100% silver, the price follows the price of silver. Unfortunately, silver is one of the most undervalued commodities around. Just a few years ago it was selling at about $4 an ounce. Current projections are that it will be around $40 an ounce by the end of 2011. Necessarily, the companies that make silver clay have to pass this price increase on to their suppliers who pass it on to us, the consumers. Consequently, prices have risen by almost 300% in one year. And it looks like it'll get worse. Forecasters warn that by 2015, silver may be selling for $400 an ounce. So the future of silver clay as a hobbyist's material looks very uncertain. One site I used to buy from has already discontinued selling as they think people can't afford it anymore. If you want to get into it, I'd suggest do it now!
Imagepac
Not long after I started playing with PMC, I realised that texturing is a great way of adding interest to the piece, but all the commercial ones available online were a) very expensive and b) unoriginal which is hardly surprising as they pretty much have a captive market.
Thus I discovered, the next great thing, Imagepac! Or rather, Stamp It (the cheaper alternative). These utilise a form of photosensitive polymer in sachets that harden upon contact with light--thus you can make a negative of your artwork and the clear or white parts will harden while the black parts will stay soft and can be washed away.
Again, my initial impressions of this product were very frustrating. The instructions included are misleading if they think you can immediately make amazing stamps with the kit--maybe some people can, but I certainly couldn't and I'd put that down to two factors: a) Problems with your artwork b)Problems with your setup
Artwork problems are addressed relatively easily--there's a wealth of information out there about how to get the best results. Summarised, only have black and white images (no greys) and make sure the black is laid down by your computer as heavily as possible so absolutely no light can get through it (hold it up to your lamp to test).
The far larger problem lies in the setup. Everybody will have a slightly different lamp, a slightly different wattage output, a different bulb. Since the exact timings of exposure are so important, any slight difference from the setup they suggest will mean the stamps come out differently. I therefore wasted almost the entire box of polymer sachets that came with the kit working out the exposure times for me. Those sachets are expensive, but once you've sorted it out, so long as you can set everything up exactly the same way again, your stamps will work time after time.
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The settings I used here were: 60w daylight Phillips bulb (the same I advocated in my post on how to make a light box) at 17cm height from the table. First exposure of 2 minutes 30s and the second for 12 minutes. Final exposure after washing for 15 minutes with the lamp as close as possible |
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Here's the final metal clay piece that was created from a finished stamp (once again, inspired by the dozens of hummingbirds in Tobago!)
Here's another piece I made from some lineart of a horse!
These items are all, of course, available on my Etsy Shop!
I'm really chuffed with this process. As soon as I know I can consistently turn photos into decent lineart and reproduce them with the photopolymer sachets, I'll be offering custom-made charms and jewellery for people who want to wear their photos in solid silver! Very excited :D
