Thinking about Structures - Skeletons in Nature


One of my goals is to use my last container of Hadar’s Steel XT clay!  I want to start on some of the new clay and am determined to use patience as I deplete my stash of the older clay.  Here goes a new project!

Usually I just thumb through my new book Art Forms in Nature book by Ernst Haeckel but for this project I wanted to get serious and really think about the underlying structure or skeleton forms in nature.  Focusing on a couple of pages that reminded me of what sea creatures might look like under their shells, I sketched some ideas, closed the book and started to create.


Mixing Hadar’s clay is so easy – as long as I creep up on the amount of water and not get it too wet - and it has a reasonable working time.  After mixing the steel XT clay it went into the refrigerator as I made the molds for my creation.

Several months ago, this muffin pan, a treasure from a thrift shop, was sawed in half to fit into my convection oven for polymer clay.  It worked great.  Time to use it again.  I formed a half circle with polymer clay for the lower body of my creature and then fashioned the top part using a spoon for a form.  Then I baked the polymer for the creature’s mold. 

POLYMER MOLD FORM

POLYMER MOLD

The steel clay was rolled 4 cards thick and draped over the molds.  It was fun to use my many oval and circle cutters to create the bone like pattern.  I let the clay dry slightly before lifting out the circles.  Now I have accent shapes for something in the future – tiny circles of varying sizes.  I put those back in the steel XT bottle to help me remember what they are.

INSIDE BEFORE FIRING
OUTSIDE BEFORE FIRING

Once everything was dry, I made sure the head and body were solidly connected.  I thought I had everything connected but after firing one of the added circles came off.  It sintered but was not adequately attached. 

NOTE:  Be sure you attach pieces enough with water and paste.  These metal clays need a solid join.

After sanding the edges and attaching the oval for hanging, I fired the piece in coconut carbon over night.  I opened that kiln the next morning before coffee!  There were a couple of slight cracks but nothing major.  In fact, I thought they added to the overall effect.

DETAIL
 After cleaning it and sanding and grinding and sanding and finishing the body, I was happy! The pearls, moonstones and silver bead dangles (reminding me of things in the sea) were added with the bail and then sprayed it with PYMII.   I absolutely love my skeletal artifact! 

BACK SIDE
FINISHED FRONT
  
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 began to really understand the technique of viking knit.  Loo
Read more

Spring Do-Over Challenge

Image
Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pair of earrings.  One pair could be part of
Read more

The Draw of the Mojave Desert or Why I Started Designing Jewelry

Image
When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He
Read more