Wednesday, June 30, 2010

good golly, it's the lovely queen molly!

you know, some people you meet are special, and you know it the minute you meet them. such is queen molly, who asked for her tiara months ago, and only got it last tuesday.  patience and modesty are great  qualities for a queen, and i understand she rules her queendom, with a gentle, but, steely hand.

she wanted her tiara in copper, because of her hair color, and she wanted to wear it or her 35th wedding anniversary. as  'jewelrymaker to the queen,('that would be me) i scurried around, perfecting my skills with copper firing times....and indeed my first set of leaves were a total loss!  i lengthened the firing time and tried again. i used fresh charcoal (coconut) and fresh clay, and included a few pieces of the old clay for test strips.  the new leaves came out fine, and the test strips did not.  my conclusion was that the first clay i used had been stored too long and oxidization had prevented proper sintering.  i will take better care when storing base metal clay, not only keeping it moist, but keeping in the fridge or freezer, to prevent, or slow down the oxidization.

i did some heat patina-ing on this piece...pretty fun, and got some lovely colors!  thanks molly for the opportunity!  how was the anniversary celebration?

1 comment:

Karen Masbaum said...

So beautiful! what's the stone in the center?