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06/05/2007: "10 things about PMC"
1. PMC = precious metal clay. It is made from recycled photo negatives. They use the silver from those combined with a binder to make basically modelling clay. When you fire it, it becomes almost 100% pure silver. It is very cool.
2. It is the consistency of bubble gum. Very sticky. I was not expecting this. The package recommends olive oil on your hands. My friend Yasya says "badger balm". I will have to look in to that.
3. Water is your friend. The clay dries out incredibly fast. It reminds me of working with "paper clay" more than polymer clay/fimo/sculpey.
4. Have a plan. Both Andy and I discovered that we got much better results if we started out with a definite plan as to what exactly we were making. Globbing it up and starting over just didn't work.
5. The above pieces are collaborations of one sort or another between Andy and I. The goldfish was sculpted and enameled. The little tiny circle charm is also enameled (very light blue). The oval is a rubber stamp impression with an added patina. The shield shape is Andy's which he intends to enamel. The leaf is the biggest success. More about the leaf later.
6. My same enamels for copper work on silver as you can see. The colors look very different over silver rather than pinkish copper. That is fun for me.
7. The patina was created by dipping the pieces in a Liver of Sulphur solution. You can get crystals that dissolve in water and it's super easy. It makes copper dark and does fascinating iridescent things to silver on its way to being black. You can also polish off the patina on the high spots. The oval pendant doesn't show its colors very well in the picture, but it has pinks and blues over it. Andy's piece is a rich gold color.
8. The leaf was created by painting the silver clay on an actual leaf. I got a little container of silver clay "slip" but you can make your own by just carefully watering down some of the regular clay. You fire the whole thing leaf and all. This one was pretty thin, so we embedded it in the enamel glass and then polished. We've already made 6 more leaves this way we liked it so much.
9. After you fire it, the silver still looks like white clay. You have to polish off the white residue with a metal brush. Leaves are a little difficult to polish.
10. All of the projects above were created from most of one package of clay, which I got for about $13.