Silver Metal Clay Rings

This weekend’s workshop was ring making techniques.
  

  

Silver Metal Clay with young students

Today I taught several young people the techniques of using the silver metal clay. They made some remarkable pieces of jewellery. The students are also remarkable as they are young carers.
Young carers are people under the age of 26 who help look after a family member who needs extra support at home. The person they care for may have a disability, mental illness, a drug or alcohol problem, or a long term illness. There are over 40,000 young carers in Western Australia, which means there are probably two in every classroom!
   
    
 
 
 

Dichroic Glass and Silver Metal Clay

This weekend workshop the students used dichroic glass cabochons set into the silver metal clay.

These pendants are straight out of the kiln ready to be burnished.
   
The finished pendants

Albany Summer School – Textile Class

After a relax and sightseeing some of the beautiful coastline around Albany it’s back to work for the second week of the Albany Summer School. I am teaching a two day comprehensive class on techniques with free machine embroidery. It was good to see the students exploring layers and textures with a variety of fabrics and yarns.  
 
We used a hot soldering iron to burn away small sections of fabric to reveal glimpses of fabric underneath.
 
We made a fabric using threads, fabric scraps and a water soluble fabric. One student formed her work into a vessel.
   

Albany Summer School – Polymer Class

The students in this class did well, most of them hadn’t used polymer before.
   
        
We covered many techniques, millefiori patterns, including skinner blends and complex flower canes, as well as textures with mica powders. Here are some photos of the finished work.
     
     
      

Albany Summer School

Well ! I’m back from Sydney with only a few days to get all the materials together for my 5 hrs drive to Albany for teaching at the Albany Summer School. You can’t believe the amount of equipment that I have to get into my Subaru. Firstly there’s my kiln all 37 kilos of it, then there’s my oven for curing polymer clay, the de-hydrator for drying the metal clay, the sewing machine for textiles in the second week plus all the other tools and materials.
The students were great and did some fantastic work. Some of them have been coming to the Albany Summer School for many years, participating in the many different workshops and classes on offer.
Here are a few photos of the Metal Clay Class:
     
Straight out of the kiln                        Finished work displayed