Bronze Clay original pendant
Several months ago I made this Bronze clay pendant representing the encouraging Footprints in the Sand poem. It turned out pretty well and I have enjoyed wearing it. Many folks have commented on it. I thought it might be a nice idea to make a few more to encourage others. I tried many times to recreate this pendant and did not have much luck getting it just right. The last time I tried it, I thought I had it, put it in the kiln to fire, and patiently waited and kept watch on my (non digital-what was I thinking?) kiln. Once the firing was done, I waited and waited for things to cool down, finally stuck an eager hand into all that charcoal and pulled up…nothing. Nothing but a few pieces, flakes really, of sort-of fused bronzish stuff. Apparently my clay went bad while I was messing around with it. Disappointed, I put the idea away for a while.
I somehow got to thinking about all I had seen on mold making and decided to look into that so I could maybe make the pedants out of polymer clay. I got some molding putty, and discovered that when they say press the “putty” onto the object, not the other way around, they mean it. After a couple tries I got a decent mold of the pendant.
Finally got a good mold.
I molded a pedant with gold Premo. Not bad, but it needed some antiquing or something. Wiped on the acrylic paint, rubbed it off–completely. Hmmmm. Tried again. Could not get the paint to stay behind. Tried letting the paint dry and then rubbing it off. Better, but still not what I wanted (and more work!)
Antiquing, not so good...
Why is this so hard?? Finally I thought about creating a darker pendant and using pearlex to highlight– BINGO! I now have a few pendants and can work on creating more and refining things.
There we go!
I enjoy getting an opportunity to try new techniques and learn new skills. This project definitely challenged me and my problem solving skills. Next up? Resin!!
