Thistle Medallion

Taking a walk through a forest, on a mountain trail or through a meadow, always inspires me.  One of my favorite flowers on these walks is the thistle.  The details of that flower make me smile.  When I found this thistle stamp in a store, of course, I just had to have it.  I put it on my work table waiting for the right time to use it. 
One day I decided to make the thistle in fine silver clay and put a wire staple on the back.  That staple would allow me to make a backing of polymer clay and attach it securely to the silver.  I also made a silver flat bail with a hole toward the bottom so I could put it between two layers of polymer.  Both the staple and the hole would force polymer clay into those openings locking the silver in place.  
These are the 3 slabs of polymer for the Illuminance & Clarice beads
The back of the medallion is made from the sunburst slab in the front of the picture.
Combining metal clay with polymer clay fascinates me.  I love blending the colors of polymer and trying new techniques.  I just purchased a new tutorial (ebook) ‘Illuminance and Clarice Beads’ by Emma Ralph on the internet and have been anxious to try it out.  http://www.ejrbeads.co.uk/  What fun I had making luminescent beads!  I happened to glance over at the silver thistle and decided to use one of the luminescent slabs of polymer as the backing. 
Shows the first backing of polymer around the silver medallion that has been cured.
2nd backing and outside edging
I made the back, adhered the silver using the staple and cured the piece.  Then I placed a second piece of polymer on top of the back and added the bail and cured that.  The edge piece was applied and cured again.
Finished Medallion
 
The finished piece makes me think of my walks through a meadow with all the shades of yellow, gold and green.  The piece could easily be reversible.  Sometimes it just takes a while to put all the pieces together.  


Labels:
Location: Prescott, AZ, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I beg...
Read more

Polymer Clay Conversation

Image
One of the polymer clay groups on FaceBook is 'Polymer Clay Collective'.  This is a group of artists working in polymer clay who share ideas and support each other.  I'm so glad to be a part.  A new feature of this group is the 'Polymer Clay Collective Conversations' where a different member answers a set  of questions.  I get to be first - the trailblazer! I hope you enjoy learning a little more about me and in two weeks I get to learn more about someone else. • Tell us a bit about where you live. I live in Prescott AZ right next to the national forest.   When I look out my studio windows, I often see large black ravens swooping between the pine trees.   Binoculars are always available for close viewing of our smaller forest birds.   You’ve probably read about the forest fires we have had in our area this summer.   The monsoon rains we are having are so welcome. • What do you do when you're not polymer claying? As of 2010, I...
Read more

I'm Back with New Pieces of Art Jewelry

Image
It’s been a while since my last post and while I missed writing them, I hope you also missed sharing my adventures!  Between a road trip to Berkeley and having painful (very painful) shoulder tendonitis my activities really slowed down.  Now I’M BACK!  Ready to explore new techniques and have fun. When I see a good tutorial about something new that catches my fancy, I buy it and eventually the day comes when I just have to try it.  Staci Louise Smith wrote a tutorial “Gold Rush: The Rustic Crackle Technique” for Craft Art Edu.  I loved the pictures of her necklaces and wanted to see what I could do.  If you like the crackle effect  on my pieces or want to try something new, check out her tutorial on   www.CraftArtEdu.com    They have good classes on many subjects. When I started following tutorials, I expected my pieces to look like the instructors.  That just did not happen and it is not the fault of the tutorial or ...
Read more