Jellyfish - My Way- Mixed Media

Finished Jellyfish!

While taking my latest metal clay class with Hadar Jacobson, my muse took over and said, "Oh this could be a jellyfish!"  And so my mokume gane project took this shape!

For anyone not familiar with mokume gane it is a Japanese metal technique that merges several different metals.  Artists of metal clay came up with a way to merge different metal clays to form similar patterns.  Artists of polymer clay developed a totally different method.  (more on that in another post). 

In Hadar's class we used bronze, copper and steel to form the patterns and inserted those pieces of dried clay into a bronze base.  The mokume gane pattern shows well on the body of the jellyfish.

This was a piece that I brought home in dried clay (greenware) form and fired the piece in my kiln.  I was so happy that it fired well and finished beautifully.  In the greenware state I added wire loops for attaching the polymer tentacles. 

The partially completed jellyfish sat for a couple of months while I thought about and experimented with translucent polymer clay.  The tentacles had to be thin and somehow attach to the body.  The ribbon like tentacles needed to be ruffly.  The final solution was to use 2 very thin strips of translucent clay with a thin wire in the center.  I found I could ruffle the flat strips by gently pushing them down the wire.  The string tentacles have wire hooks embedded at the tips. 

wires in tentacles

Wires in ruffled tentacles

This jellyfish came out pretty much how my muse and I saw it!  Wish I had a virtual aquarium for it to live in.