Metal Clay Magic | A celebration of metal clay jewelry and art

Bitten By The Pinterest Bug – Part 1

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Wendy McManus

Have you discovered Pinterest? Of course you have, or perhaps you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months. Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site, with a strong presence amongst affluent, college-educated women under 50. The Pew Research Center recently published a study profiling the users of various social media platforms. If you’re interested in this kind of data-diving, check it out. Then, fly straight over to Pinterest and get started with your new obsession!

Pinterest is easier to use than to explain, so if the following description is baffling, just go to Pinterest, create your account and start exploring. The entire site is based on images and pin boards. Users pin images, from the internet, or from their computers, onto pin boards. Think of these pin boards as topics or interest areas to help you organize your pinned images. For example, I have pin boards for recipes, travel, tutorials, birds and birdhouses, colors, textures, awesome jewelry and several other topics. You’ll create and name your own pin boards to reflect what you want to pin, and you can create a new pin board at any time to start a new topic.

The easiest way to start filling your pin boards is by re-pinning. Every pinned image on the site has the option to re-pin with just a couple of clicks. You’ll also want to install a Pin It button on your browser toolbar, so you can pin images while you surf. Many sites are starting to add Pin It buttons right on their site, sometimes on each image, to encourage you to pin their stuff.

While you’re pinning, you’ll also want to start following people and boards to shape what you see when you visit Pinterest. Like Facebook, your Pinterest home page is your “feed”, or the incoming stream of what has recently been pinned by the people you follow. Your feed will change dramatically based on who you choose to follow. You’ll have the option to follow all of a Pinner’s boards, or just specific boards. The site makes it really easy to trace back interesting pins and check out the boards of the people who pinned that image. I’m following (and being followed by) lots of people I don’t know because of this discovery process.

If you create your account by signing in with Facebook, Pinterest will help you connect with your Facebook friends. I found this feature to be really helpful, especially when I was getting started. Be mindful if you do this, that your friends on Facebook may be notified each time you pin something on Pinterest. I was not interested in that type of cross-pollination, so I chose settings that would not show my pinning activity on my Facebook feed.

Another way to find images on Pinterest is to use the search bar, or the topic options that drop down when you click on the three-bar icon in the upper left corner.

Give some thought to how you pin images and how you credit the owner of each image. It’s not a good practice to pin images from a Google image search, because the link to the original source for the image will be lost. It is a good practice to list the website or originator of the image. One of the cool things about Pinterest is the way you can click through on the pinned image until you get to the source site. The entire community wins when these links are maintained.

So, you may ask, why am I so obsessed with Pinterest? Well, as an artist, I love eye candy. Pinterest is like a visual feast, and it’s really easy to curate your feed to shape that feast to suit your personal tastes. When I’m looking for visual inspiration, Pinterest never fails to feed that need. It’s an easy way to find and collect recipes. My sister used it to collect ideas for renovating her bathroom, and now she’s imagining her new kitchen as seen on Pinterest. A friend recently got married, and used Pinterest to help shape the look of her wedding. I think of Pinterest as a visual search engine that’s curated by my fellow pinners. It’s also a lovely distraction that can fill a moment or an hour with enticing imagery.

This post has been focused on my use of Pinterest for personal reasons. Next time, I’ll talk about using Pinterest for promotion and marketing. In the meantime, feel free to follow me or any of my boards at pinterest.com/wendymcmanus.

About Wendy McManus

As a metal clay addict, I spend most of my time working with, thinking about or dreaming about metal clay. I started the Metal Clay Magic project in 2009 to showcase amazing metal clay artists. In 2012, I engaged a diverse group of artists and converted the site to a group blogging project. You can find my jewelry at www.StudioMcManus.com

Deciphering Test Strips

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Evelyn

Second of a Two Part Series: Sintering, Test Strips and Carbon-Fired Clays

In my last post I talked about why test strips are a good idea. For this article, I talked with Bill Struve, inventor of BRONZClay and COPPRClay, and owner of Metal Adventures, manufacturer of those brands. Bill provided me with a wealth of information, and also directed to me Mardel Rein’s very informative Learning Center page at her Cool Tools web site, about firing bronze metal clay.

So, how do we “read” a test strip?

There are many tests you can perform on a metal clay strip. The first one I usually do after removing the strip from the carbon is to drop it onto a steel bench block. It should make a particular type of ringing sound, very metallic. If it has a dull sound or a “clunk”, something is wrong.

The next test is to bend the strip. This test is designed to help determine if the piece is sintered enough to be malleable. You bend the strip into a tight “u” shape, approximately .2 inches (5 mm) inside the “u”. During this test, the outside surface of the strip is stretched, while the inside is compressed. The strip should not crack, tear or break. Thicker pieces will crack or break more easily than thin, so that is why test strips are done at a thickness of 4 or 5 cards—sort of a happy medium thickness.

The last test is to mix a tiny bit of detergent into a small amount of water, then place a drop of this water on the strip. The water should not be absorbed*, but sit on top of the strip. This is because with the progression of sintering, the piece becomes less porous. The water test indicates a “closed” porosity.

*This test will indicate a relatively full sintering. It is possible for the strip to pass the bend test but not this test. Not passing this test does not always indicate a problem with your piece. But if you are looking for full sintering, this is a good test.

Another test that can be performed on a strip is to hammer it really hard. The strip should not crack or break.

Unsuccessful strips can provide clues to what went wrong with your firing. And there are a lot of them! Mardel Rein describes them best in her articles that I mentioned before. I highly recommend looking at her page, there are a series of troubleshooting photos that are invaluable.

About Evelyn

I'm a metal clay artist who is learning something new every day. My goal in my work is to make things that are well crafted and distinctively from my own hands, like the work of a good tailor. My jewelry can be found at http://www.evelynpelati.com.

Why Use Test Strips?

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Evelyn

First of a Two Part Series: Sintering, Test Strips and Carbon-Fired Clays

Ever since I’ve been using carbon-fired clays, I have become a big advocate of test strips. A lot of work can be wasted without the information that they provide.

Test strips give clues to how completely sintered your piece is, and how good your firing schedule is. There are so many variables to working in carbon-fired metal clay, it is often difficult to arrive at a proper firing schedule just by following the manufacturer’s suggestions. Many times you need to customize your own firing plan.

It’s tempting to just dive right in with new clay and create a beautiful piece of art. But I always hold myself back until I’ve successfully fired a test strip. Then I can fire my work knowing that I have a pretty good firing schedule. There is no bigger disappointment than putting a day’s worth of work in the kiln, only to have it come out ruined—either over-fired or breaking easily from under-firing.

Another use for test strips is as a “witness strip” (a term coined by Mardel Rein, owner of Cool Tools and expert on firing metal clays and troubleshooting). A witness strip is fired alongside your piece. Upon removing your work after firing, you can perform tests on the strip, which will give an indication as to what is going on inside your piece. If it is under-fired you will be able to re-fire the piece. This isn’t a substitute for testing to arrive at a firing schedule. This is a technique to do after the firing schedule is already determined, anytime you would like to be informed about a particular piece or group of pieces you are firing. Gordon Uyehara describes this use for test strips in his excellent book, Metal Clay Fusion.

I really like this template from Metal Clay Supply for cutting out test strips. Since I make them often, it is a time-saver and also provides uniformity. I roll the clay to five cards thick. I also measure the strips before and after firing to help get a feel for the shrinkage rate of the clay.

Next time I’ll talk about tests to perform on the strips and what they can tell you about sintering.

About Evelyn

The Basics of Sintering Carbon-Fired Clay

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Evelyn

With the arrival of metal clay that needs to be fired in carbon came a whole set of challenges—determining the proper firing schedule and producing sintered pieces being the biggest. Quirky shrinkage can be another.

It’s helpful to have a basic understanding of what is going on in the sintering process.

For this article I talked with Bill Struve, inventor of BRONZClay and COPPRClay, and owner of Metal Adventures, manufacturer of those brands. Bill shed some light on this complex topic. I’m going to summarize what he said.

Sintering happens when the small metal particles in the clay get hot enough for the metal atoms of touching particles to begin to diffuse into each other. At first, there are a lot of connected open spaces between these particles. This is why, in the early stages of sintering, the piece is weaker. As sintering progesses, the particles coalesce more and the spaces get smaller. The metal gets less porous and stronger, until the piece is fully sintered. So, the sintered state ranges from a beginning stage to complete. Depending upon what you are making, and/or what you are co-firing, you may need or want to accept the sintering at an earlier stage or take it all the way to fully sintered.

Sintered metal powder. (courtesy of European Space Agency)

The sintering process is also the cause of shrinkage. Shrinkage for carbon-fired clays can be a bit mysterious. A piece can shrink at different rates in different directions. The forces on the clay that cause shrinkage during firing are not very strong. Because of this, if there is any resistance on the clay, it will inhibit shrinkage in that direction. But, as we know, due to the sintering process the clay must shrink. What will happen is there will be more shrinkage in the directions with lesser resistance.

Carbon can hold back the shrinkage of firing clay, providing the resistance we are talking about. The lesson here is to pay close attention to the position of pieces in the firing chamber, as it has an effect on the shrinkage. Also, carbon resisting the shrinkage can distort the piece. This is why we cover openwork pieces to keep the carbon out of the openings.

Thin pieces sinter practically all at once. But for thick pieces it takes time for the heat to penetrate. The outside will be sintering at a faster rate than the inside. It is even possible to have a piece that has a sintered shell on the outside while the inside is remains a powder. This occurs when the ramp is faster than the heat can penetrate the thickness. That is why it is wise to slow the ramp when firing thick pieces. It gives the heat time to gradually soak into the piece.

Knowing this little bit about the science of what’s going on when you fire these types of clays can help troubleshoot some of the problems we encounter.

Next time I’ll write about test strips, a good tool for troubleshooting.

About Evelyn

How to Approach a Booth as a Visiting Artist

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Wendy McManus

In the comments to my last post about New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF), Vickie asked about how to approach another artist’s booth. It can be a a touchy situation. The rules at NYIGF state that an exhibitor can’t enter another exhibitor’s booth without permission. I was wearing an exhibitors badge, which I got from a friend. So, how did I have so many friendly conversations with other artists during the show?

First, if the booth was designed well, I could get a look without stepping out of the aisle. If the artist was engaged and greeting all passers by, they would start the conversation. I would quickly state that I was not an exhibitor, but just got the badge from a friend. I would let them know I am a jewelry artist, and I’m considering doing the show in the future.

If they seemed open to talking with me, I would start by asking them if it had been a good show for them. If there was something about their booth I particularly liked, I would compliment them. I had a few standard questions that I asked, including:

What other shows do you do?
What is your best show?
Will you be at Buyer’s Market next month?
How many times have you done this show, and how does this time compare to the past?
What do you think of this section?

Some artists were chatty. Others, not so much. I tried to follow their lead and match my level of engagement to theirs. I didn’t bombard anyone with all of these questions, but rather felt for the best flow in my interactions.

Last July I walked the Atlanta Gift Show. I’ve also walked and showed at ACRE Orlando. Through those experiences, I’ve met quite a few artists. There were a couple that are friends of friends. Several of the artists are in my mentoring group. With anyone that I had a previous history, it was much easier to approach. I would remind them of our connection or previous meeting, which was a great conversation starter.

It’s important to note that I would only do this if there was no one else in the booth. If a buyer approached, I would cut my conversation short and move on with a friendly wave. It’s important to remember that the exhibitors have paid big bucks to get access to the buyers. It would be the height of rudeness to get in the way of any opportunity.

Now, I did have a few awkward moments. I got some blank stares. One woman rudely stated that I should not even approach her booth without asking her permission. These exchanges were definitely the exception, not the rule.

For the most part, the artists I spoke with were friendly, supportive and generous with their time and information. If you are considering getting into wholesale, I strongly suggest that you visit a wholesale show. Even if you can’t visit the specific show you are considering, it will be helpful to walk any wholesale show. You’ll learn so much through observation and the conversations you’ll have.

About Wendy McManus

What I Learned at New York International Gift Fair

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Wendy McManus

For the past year or so, I’ve been working toward a successful wholesale jewelry business. It’s been a slow build, which was perfectly fine during the first year, but now I need to ramp it up, increase my distribution, build my reputation and sell a heck of a lot more jewelry so I can be profitable and sustainable.

I’ll be showing my work in just a couple of weeks at Buyer’s Market of American Craft (BMAC) in Philadelphia. I’m also considering if I should exhibit at the New York International Gift Fair (NYIGF) in August. To that end, I decided to visit New York during the January show, so I could see it for myself and assess the opportunity.

The Javits Center, home of the New York International Gift Fair.

I’m happy to share some things I learned:

Most artisans are incredibly kind and generous people. They will welcome you into their booth, and talk openly with you, even though you may be their competition next year.
When people are not nice, it’s best just to take a deep breath and move along.
The show is huge, with many different sections. Most buyers don’t walk the entire show. Finding and getting in to the right section where your right buyers will find you is important.
There are pros and cons to every section. If you don’t get into the section you most desire, you can still have a good show. I realize this sounds like a contradiction to my previous point, but really both things are true.
If you ask 100 artists how the show has been for them, you’ll get 100 different answers that vary wildly. Every single artist has a different show experience. There are lots of things you can do to help your experience tip toward the positive.
Being engaged, smiling and speaking to everyone that passes by will be a big factor in your success. I saw many artists sitting in the back corner of their booths, checking their cell phones, and generally not being very approachable.
Jewelry artists have found hundreds of creative ways to display their work. I was really blown away by the quality and variety of display solutions in the show.
Even so, some jewelry artists still manage to have boring displays.
If you try to be too clever with your displays or work too hard at expressing a theme for your booth, the displays can easily overwhelm the work. Remember to keep the focus on what you’re selling.
This is not a retail show. You don’t need to have your work under glass. You want the buyers to touch the work, so keep it accessible and display it so it’s easy to pick up and then put back in place.
This is not a retail show. Buyers do not want to flip through earring cards stacked in a tray or spin your revolving racks. Everything should be easy to see.
This is not a retail show. If you have a zillion pieces in your line, you must edit the collection before coming to the show. Overly busy displays really junk up the look of your booth. Also, if buyers are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices, they will glaze over and keep walking.
Beige linen necklace busts are now ubiquitous. I’m not saying don’t use them. I use them. I’m simply saying you should be aware that they are everywhere. You must find a way to stand out from the crowd. Pull in some pops of color somewhere to liven up the look or incorporate some other unique display elements to complement the linen busts.
Your displays and your entire booth should reflect your brand and match your visual aesthetic. Don’t use lots of acrylic and shiny elements to display work that’s organic and earthy. Don’t use lots of vintage and romantic looking display elements if your work is industrial modern.
Make the most of the first two feet of your booth space off the aisle. I saw many nice displays that simply pushed the work up across the front edge of the booth. An L-shaped display using the front and center of the booth can work well. I also saw a number of great island displays with the work centered in the booth, but still pushed forward. I found the most challenging arrangements to be the 10’ wide spaces arranged in a U-shape. This may maximize your table space, but if forces buyers to step all the way into your booth to see the work. At a busy show, that’s asking a great deal of buyers who are practically power-walking down the aisles.
It is possible to have a really nice booth without investing too much. Remember that when you invest in displays, you’re not only spending the money for those fixtures. You also have to think about where you will store them, how much it will cost to ship them to and from the show and how long it will take to set up and tear down. I heard stories of artists that spent 12 hours setting up. I heard stories of tears, angry husbands and structural disasters that required a complete re-configuration at the last minute. I also spoke to an artist with a fabulous booth who brought everything she needed in two carry on bags, and rented the rest at the show. It can be done.

For now, I’m still on the fence about doing NYIGF in August. It’s expensive – much more so than BMAC – but if I have a good show and pick up lots of new accounts, it could definitely be worth it. I need to get through this next show and process all I’ve learned before I can commit.

Were any of you at NYIGF? How about BMAC? Will I be seeing you there? I think our metal clay community has a huge opportunity in wholesaling. Won’t you join me on this adventure?

About Wendy McManus

So You Want To Do An Art Show…Part Deux

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Gail Lannum

There are three basic things you will need when you start doing art shows. The rest is just decoration….well…not just…but it’s decoration.

The first is a booth or tent. If you aren’t planning on doing outdoor shows, you would only need a booth set up. Me…I have done both indoor and outdoor shows so I use a tent for both. After having a cheap tent destroyed in a storm, I decided to buy a serious tent. After some internet research, I called the guys at Flourish. It’s a shop of 10 guys in Arkansas. They were wonderful in helping me choose a tent and had it to me in less than a week. It’s very well made and easy to put together. The canopy and walls don’t leak in the rain…something I can’t say about my first tent. I use the tent frame for indoor shows. I put curtains up on three walls and it makes a nice booth.

My next purchase was tables. All the books and articles on doing shows will tell you that you need to raise your tables up. Some people use PVC pipe to extend the legs. Others use bed risers. Another internet search and I found Lifetime tables. I chose the 4’ tables that could adjust to three different heights. I have been using these for years.Next….lights. When you do indoor shows you need lights. Let me repeat this….you need lights. I have seen diplays of some really amazing jewelry in booths that were dark. You can’t sell you jewelry if your customers can’t see it. Also, good lights highlight your work and make it pop. Yet another internet search….I research on the internet a lot….yielded lights. Brightman Design is a small company out in California. They might be small but their lights are great. I think I’ve had them for about 6 years and only had to replace one bulb. I have the telescoping lights that can clamp onto tables or booth walls.

As for the rest….JoAnn Fabrics has some great upholstery fabric for table cloths. Pier 1 has been a great place to find unique table displays. I like to mix up professional displays with quirky ones. Depending on the season, I bring in flowers or pointsettas to make things pretty.

About Gail Lannum

My day job is research administration but my career...my obession...is making jewelry. I work primarily in bronze and am inspired by ethnic and tribal art. You can see my jewelry at gaillannum.etsy.com

Challenges

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Mikki

This month my post will be a short one, as I’ve been dealing with the flu and a neverending cough!

For the past few years I have started each year joining a challenge; A Ring a Week, an Earring a Day, Four a Month. I’ve never finished one, sad to say. But I continue to join them and push myself to meet deadlines. I don’t expect that I will ever finish one totally or on time, life generally intervenes. However, I enjoy them for a number of reasons. There is a difference in how I think about the work I do for these challenges compared to my day to day studio work. I teach a lot and have work in a few galleries, so a good percentage of my work consists of class samples and easily repeatable pieces that are cost effective for both myself and my buyers. Challenges give me a push to create beyond this. There is also enjoyment in seeing what other people will do within the guidelines of a challenge.

This year I decided to join Joy Funnell’s challenge A Critter A Week. I’ve posted four pieces to the group and am up to date thus far. If you’d like to see what the rest of the group has posted check out their work at http://www.flickr.com/groups/weeklycritterchallenge/

About Mikki

I am a metal clay artist, living in Londonderry, New Hampshire. I teach from my home studio, at Metalwerx in Waltham, Mass and various other venues throughout New England. My work can be found at the shops of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and local galleries. You can see my examples of work at www.everlastingtreasures.org

Understanding Image Resolution

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Evelyn

I work for Metal Clay Artist Magazine as an art and photography editor. One of my jobs is to prepare photographs for print. I see many images that are submitted to the magazine. A problem that comes up many times is a resolution problem—the images are too small and don’t have enough resolution to be suitable for reproduction in the magazine.

Resolution was a very hard concept for me to grasp when I first learned it. I’d like to share with you the way image re-sizing was taught to me that finally helped me understand it. There is another method of image sizing in Photoshop, called “resampling”, that I won’t be discussing here. I’m concentrating this article on re-sizing an image for print.

Every digital image contains a set number of pixels of information that you determine with your camera settings when you capture the image. Once that photo is taken, pretend those pixels are all you will have to work with.
So think of an image like a cube. The cube has volume. Think of the volume as the pixels in the image.

Now let’s say that cube is 2 inches wide by 3 inches high, and the depth is 72 dpi—the resolution of the image. That cube’s volume is 91.1K pixels. For our purposes, that is all the pixels that cube will ever contain.

If we decide to enlarge that image and stretch out the 2 inches by 3 inches to 4 inches by 6 inches, the depth of the cube has to get shorter. So the resolution will drop to 36 dpi. Remember, in our case, we only have so many pixels in that cube to manipulate.

When you stretch the 2×3 cube to 4×6, the depth (dpi) gets smaller.

If you want to submit photos of your work for print, the resolution of that image usually must be 300 dpi. This is the industry standard for print resolution. If your image’s dpi is lower than that, then the image needs to be large in vertical and horizontal dimensions.

Here is an example—again using our cube idea. We have an image that is 17 by 25 inches at 72 dpi. So our cube is 17 inches wide, 25 inches high, and 72 dpi deep. It has a volume of 6.30M of pixels, and that is a set number for us. Now we want to stretch the resolution, or depth of the cube, out to 300 dpi. When we do that, the width and the height shrink down to approximately 4 inches by 6 inches.

When you squash 17×25 down to 4×6, the depth (dpi) gets greater.

To re-size your image the way we are illustrating, in Photoshop, go to Image—Image Size. You will get the Image Size dialog box. Uncheck the “Resample Image” box. Notice that the width, height and resolution proportions of the Document Size become linked together. Now type in one of the sizes you want to change. It doesn’t matter which one you change, they will all re-calculate according to how many pixels your image has. (If the cube gets stretched or shrunk one way, the rest of the cube adjusts along with it). Then click “OK”.

Notice how the width, height and resolution sizes become linked when the Resample Image box is unchecked.

The width and height sizes change when the resolution is changed.

This article is a brief and simplified overview on image re-sizing for print. As it always is with Photoshop, there is so much more to the topic. Most importantly, be sure when you are preparing your images for submission that you have plenty of pixels to accommodate the necessary 300 dpi resolution needed for print. When you take your photographs, be sure your camera is set to capture a high resolution image.

About Evelyn

Are You A Resolutionary?

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Katie Hanrahan

Hey all you New Year’s Resolutionaries! It’s that time again. Time to reflect on the year that is ending and think about the new one coming up, resolving to improve this or start/stop that. Make a list of things you want to accomplish, goals you want to reach, things you want to make happen. It’s a ritual you partake in every New Year’s Eve, like watching the ball fall at Times Square for the countdown to midnight.

So how’s that working for ya?

If you’re like most of us, the number of things still unaccomplished at the end of the year far outnumber those accomplished. In other words, it’s not working well. I gave up making New Year’s resolutions many years ago. I got tired of making promises to myself that I didn’t keep. So I stopped. No more lists of goals to be accomplished by December 31st. I was sick of feeling guilty for not achieving them, sick of disappointing myself in such a ritualistic way year after year. Enough. No more.

That’s not to say I don’t reflect on the year that has passed, or ponder the new one starting (or that I don’t have a “To Do” list as long as my arm!). I still do a mental ‘summing up’ of the old year, and think about how I’d like the new year to be. And I consider ways to create that new year for myself, but not with a list of ‘things to do’ or ‘goals to achieve’ or ‘habits to break’.

For this New Year, I would like to concern myself with ‘attitude adjusters’ or ‘brain trainers’. Not things to accomplish and be done with, but states of being to move toward on a permanent basis. I would like to work on my intents, rather than my intentions.

Merriam-Webster defines “intention” as “A determination to act in a certain way. What one intends to do or bring about.” We all have good intentions – the road to heaven is paved with them, right? But having good intentions doesn’t necessarily get the job done.

“Intent” is defined as “The act or fact of intending.” Or more specifically, “[A] determined and purposeful state of mind accompanying an act… Implies inevitability of a consequence.” (BusinessDictionary.com).

Thesaurus.com gives this clear distinction: intention implies “…an intermittent resolution or an initial plan” whereas intent “…implies a sustained unbroken commitment or purpose…”

Intention versus intent. An intermittent (every New Year’s Eve) resolution versus a sustained commitment. A determination to act versus the inevitable result of a state of mind.

The other day, as I was thinking about all of this and starting to write this blog entry, a friend posted something on Facebook that brought it home for me: “Joy is the inevitable result of gentleness” (from A Course in Miracles). Being in a state of gentleness will inevitably result in joy.

Beautiful.

And who wouldn’t want that?

So in this New Year, I am going to work on my intents instead of resolutions. And perhaps I’ll start with gentleness.

About Katie Hanrahan

Making jewelry is my passion. Metal clay is part of that passion and a favorite tool in my toolbox. Each day in my studio I try to challenge myself in some way, to push myself to sharpen my skills, think outside the box, learn new techniques or experiment with new materials in order to grow as an artist. I am part of an artists collective called The Screw Factory Artists and you can see some of my work on our website www.screwfactoryartists.com.

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Holliday’s regal rough pendant

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Helga van Leipsig

Pendant, 2006. Fine silver, 2 1/4″

This silver pendant from Claire Holliday was the first piece I saw from her work.

I was instantly captivated.

It was on the promotional postcard for the PMC conference 2007 in London, UK. My first ever conference and also the first PMC conference in Europe.

Since then I am a bit on the hunt for work of her. She doesn’t make it easy to find. No website or public profile. She has been the Chair of the Metals Department on the Southwest School of Art & Craft in San Antonio, Texas from 1981 till 2008. Lorena Angulo and Vickie Hallmark have been lucky to be one of her students.

Her work has a textural richness and roughness that I admire highly. She knows how to take advantage of the ceramic qualities Metal Clay has.

Till now I found a few sources where you can see her Metal Clay work and I would like to share them with you.

The book PMC Decade by Tim McCreight
On the cover and page 27, 87, 112, 113, 127, 213 (the pendant pictured here). On www.brynmorgen.com you can see the brooch on the cover: “Coba“.

Metalsmith magazine volume 27 nr 3
Front cover and page 45 (the pendant pictured here).
Metalsmith is a publication of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG).

The year book PMC Guild annual#2 2008
She was one of the jurors together with Maggie Bergman, Holly Gage, & Alan Revere. Two pieces of her work.

Metal Clay Beads
The book from Barbera Becker Simon. On page 135.

We’re Serious About This
2004 Invitational Exhibition by curator-Barbara Becker Simon.
Page 19, 20, 21, 22.

If you know more places where her work is published, I would love to hear about it in the comments.

About Helga van Leipsig

Lives and works in The Netherlands. She creates one of a kind and limited edition jewelry that she sells through her website and a few galleries. Exploring the possibilities of metal clay is her passion, one that leads to innovative techniques like using ceramic decals on fine silver. She loves to share her knowledge by teaching metal clay workshops in the south of the Netherlands and presenting at conferences.

From Sketch to Metal with a Computer’s Help

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Evelyn

Fourth of a Four Part Series: Designing for Metal Clay

In my series so far, I’ve talked about calculating metal clay shrinkage and enlargement, and then using those calculations to create templates from your sketches. You trace your sketches and enlarge, then cut the templates. These templates are used to cut metal clay and construct your pieces.
The other way I design jewelry and make templates is with my computer.
I don’t use CAD software (used in the industry to create 2 and 3D drawings and models of jewelry designs). My computer-aided jewelry design is much more simple and crude than that. But it works for me and at times I find it extremely useful.
If you are interested in trying this technique, you will need some type of vector drawing software. I use Adobe Illustrator.
To begin with, I usually still start with a sketch on paper. In this case it helps me to get a direction and there’s something about the immediacy of pen to paper that helps my imagination flow freely. Sometimes, I come into the project with such a clear idea that I go directly to the computer to draw it out. Or, if I love my pen-to-paper sketch as it is, I can scan the drawing and trace parts of it if it is necessary to be more accurate than simply tracing the drawing on tracing paper.

My sketch

Once I am ready to plan my piece I use the various drawing tools in Illustrator to draw my piece at actual size. I don’t usually get into a lot of elaborate shading or illustration techniques. In this case I am working out scale, proportion, shapes and construction. Sometimes I only need to draw simple boxes or circles, sometimes it’s a bit more resolved—maybe a little shading just so I can visualize what I’ve got going on.
Another thing I find useful is to place scans, for example a scan of a stone, and trace it with my drawing program. Then I use this traced shape to design a setting for the stone.
I print my drawings often, sometimes cutting things out so I can “hold” the actual piece in my hand or try it on.
Once I’m satisfied that I have the design the way I like it, I make a copy of the drawing. I always keep my original as a reference, and make as many copies of it as I will need. This way I never lose my reference point.
I take the copy and enlarge it to the percentage I need for my clay of choice. This may be all I need to do. I print out the enlargement, cut it out and use it as a template. Usually, though, there are several layers or components to my piece so I need to make another copy—this time of the enlarged drawing—and then I pull the enlarged drawing apart. I place each part separately on the page.

An example of a layout using Illustrator

The finished bracelet.

Now I have all of my shapes, enlarged to the proper size, ready to print and cut out for a template sheet. As I mentioned in my last post, I print on card stock and put packing tape over the back. When cut out, this makes a nice solid template to use with a needle tool for cutting metal clay.
Also, this method can be adapted for making photopolymer plates of artwork, or to send artwork out for being made into a rubber stamp, etc. Remember to use your enlarged version for these purposes. And if your artwork contains lettering or anything that needs to be “right reading”, you will need to flop it over so that your lettering does not come out backward on your final piece.