Hi All,
This time, I decided to try at least one of the idea / technique that I have been thinking for long. Trust me I want to try all but had time challenges. But soon I will have lots and lots of time - decided to take break from job and have some healthy breathe :).
Coming back to the challenge, Couple of months back I visited a very famous store for crafts in my area (Itsy Bitsy) and saw very cute small round glass beads / mirrors. I was not sure but an idea came to try them on clay - without even knowing if it can work! And they have been lying in my crafts box since then until 2 days back I decided to do something with them.
I was not sure if mirror will work on polymer jewelry - first, whether it will look good (but somehow had a positive feel about it), was not sure about the challenges during the process - embedding them in clay / baking / shaping the whole piece, how many mirrors will look good etc. etc.
So far, I had seen people using clay as frame for big / hand mirrors but not in jewelry so to be precautionary, I tried googling for jewelry and couldn't find any 'relevant' article. So decided to experiment all myself :)... I am happy I did that (you will see why I am saying that).
Well, I started with a crackled sheet of polymer I made couple of weeks back, few mirrors (small circles, may be 1 cm wide), black clay, acrylics and few selected gilders pastes. I planned to try with a very basic square flat pendant instead of choosing something complicated initially.
Few Challenges I faced:
This time, I decided to try at least one of the idea / technique that I have been thinking for long. Trust me I want to try all but had time challenges. But soon I will have lots and lots of time - decided to take break from job and have some healthy breathe :).
Coming back to the challenge, Couple of months back I visited a very famous store for crafts in my area (Itsy Bitsy) and saw very cute small round glass beads / mirrors. I was not sure but an idea came to try them on clay - without even knowing if it can work! And they have been lying in my crafts box since then until 2 days back I decided to do something with them.
I was not sure if mirror will work on polymer jewelry - first, whether it will look good (but somehow had a positive feel about it), was not sure about the challenges during the process - embedding them in clay / baking / shaping the whole piece, how many mirrors will look good etc. etc.
So far, I had seen people using clay as frame for big / hand mirrors but not in jewelry so to be precautionary, I tried googling for jewelry and couldn't find any 'relevant' article. So decided to experiment all myself :)... I am happy I did that (you will see why I am saying that).
Well, I started with a crackled sheet of polymer I made couple of weeks back, few mirrors (small circles, may be 1 cm wide), black clay, acrylics and few selected gilders pastes. I planned to try with a very basic square flat pendant instead of choosing something complicated initially.
Few Challenges I faced:
- Mirrors are 1 cm in diameter so putting more than 3-4 mirrors increase the overall size of pendant. So, if you really want to use lots of mirrors in one piece, get ready for a huge jewel piece :). I am really not sure if smaller pieces are available because that's the standard I saw in majority of places (& cloths).
- Deciding on the visibility level of mirrors in the jewel... Too much visibility makes the jewelry excessive reflective - Not good if its exactly placed over your neck - think of the situation where people can't even look at you. So, how much surface of mirrors should the clay be covering was a challenge. In this case, I went for broader visibility as the pendant was planned to fall slightly below the chest hence, reflection not major challenge.
- Placing the mirrors at equal level of clay - that means putting a lower layer bringing the mirror and clay surface smooth and then covering with another layer - trust me it was a task in itself. But managed it somehow.
- Scared - what if mirror / glass breaks in the oven during baking. But to my luck - nothing happened. So, its very much safe to do all glass/mirror activities before baking and put in oven for recommended time of clay.
So here is the few pics of the final piece. I will call it 'Following Mirage in Drought'.
Did I hear why this name? Oh, don't miss the bird on locket over the crackled area flying towards the mirrors / glass (mirage effect). I know, I know what you are thinking but i liked the whole idea of pendant and will stick to the name.
Did I hear why this name? Oh, don't miss the bird on locket over the crackled area flying towards the mirrors / glass (mirage effect). I know, I know what you are thinking but i liked the whole idea of pendant and will stick to the name.
Very happy to be among the first ones to try this out (I guess so). I am working on few earrings and bracelets on the same concept - will share the pics soon.
In the meantime, Happy Claying!
Regards,
Rashi
9th June 2015
9th June 2015
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