May Day! May Day!

May is speeding on and my days are filling fast, with graduations, gardening and out of town visitors. Oops! And the May KC PMC Guild meeting is tomorrow night! (Tuesday, May 15).

Gale will continue teaching us her techniques - this time on capturing a shard of pottery or china in PMC. Bring some clay and a piece of pottery you want to use in your project.

 We will also have a BONUS hands-on activity. Cecelia will show us how she made her custom texture plates using 2-part molding silicone. Bring some meat tray foam and a pencil or stylus. Silicone provided.

Tear Away Success

Thanks, Jennifer, for a great night of burnishing and tearing paper and polymer clay! Here is Janice exercising her arm, rubbing and rubbing....

With a row of pasta machines (to condition the Studio Clay by Sculpey), several toaster ovens to cure the clay and a laser printer loaded with glossy paper, Jennifer Finley led us in a productive evening of creating low-relief polymer and paper texture plates.

Experimentation confirmed what the online tutorials told us - not all polymer clays will adhere to the toner on the paper - which is what pulls the design off and leaves the negative plate. Also, when using a commercial copier (such as Office Depot, Office Max, Staples, etc) be sure to specify LASER printer, not ink jet (which results in transfers, not tear-aways).

• burnish 2 minutes, rest, reburnish 2 minutes
• work on small ceramic tile that will fit into the oven - moving clay from worksurface to tile causes ripples
• don't push too hard, but work to create friction heat
• pull paper away quickly - like a bandage
• back both clay and paper tear away to get a positive AND a negative plate of same design
• let clay cool before removing from baking tile
• use copies that have definition - no half-tones or too-fine lines

Can't wait to see these textures used on some pmc pieces!! 

March 2012 KC PMC Guild Meeting Plan

At our March meeting, Tuesday, March 20, Jen Finley will be teaching us the Tear Away Texture Technique – developed by Gwen Gibson and made famous by Celie Fago’s extensive use in her awesome jewelry.

If you want to read ahead there are several tutorials online. (Search for Tear Away Technique)

The process requires some materials and your texture design must be printed onto GLOSSY paper with an old-style toner copier.

Jennifer will be bringing a variety of designs you may use, but if you want to use your own original texture drawing (such as one of your Zentangle drawings or anything else you have drawn – which we encourage—as long as they are large enough lines. See below.)

Line art printed on heavy glossy paper. Jen will bring a variety of designs that people can use.  If anybody wants to bring their own stuff, there are a couple of options:

1. If you have access to an old fashioned toner based copy machine, the art can be copied onto 32# glossy paper. A canon or HP laser printer will probably work, too.  Inkjet printers will not work and other brands of laser printers are not  likely to work.

2. If you want to copy your own take your designs to Office Max or Staples (80 gloss text) and request copying onto 32# glossy paper.

NOTE: Your designs should be graphic – lines that are too delicate will not transfer well.

The guild will provide:

            Polymer clay (requires old formula Sculpey III or new Sculpey Studio clay) in a light color

            A toaster oven to bake the clay. 

            A dedicated pasta machine (we’ll have at least 3, but the more the merrier. Perhaps the polymer people could also bring theirs?)

Glass mats or flat shiny porcelain tiles to work on

32# glossy paper

 You should bring:

            Work surface

            Polymer working tools (such as tissue blade, acrylic roller etc) optional

            Small glossy tile to bake on

           

Congratulations, Pat and Susan!

Congrats to Pat Kuehn - she had a beaded piece accepted for publication by Beadwork Magazine later this year. We'll look forward to seeing that. She brought a trayful of gorgeous crystal and beaded jewelry for show and tell - no photo, sorry.
Congratulations also to Susan Silvey - she's a Saul Bell 2012 Award finalist in the Metal Clay category!

We also saw Janice's amazing Leather Pendant with Zentangles, Cheryl's Polymer Clay Zentangle pendant using colored pens and gloss highlights, and more. No photos - Sorry.

If you missed the meeting, you missed a great class in Planning and Design of your work.
Gale Schlagel showed us some of her early PMC pendants and how a lack of understanding and advance planning resulted in pieces that were hard to attach, had no coordinating finishing pieces (end-caps or connectors) or had holes in the wrong places, hang crooked, etc. (note: Gale's mistakes are way above my best pieces, but still....)

• tip: Rio Grande and other metal clay suppliers will buy-back your fired fine silver mistakes to recycle the metal and reduce your loss.

Carol Harder lead us in a review of the Principles and Elements of Design. (We got a 25 minute, condensed version of a 6-week design unit from her art class curriculum.)



Elements of Art

• Line - the simplest form

She handed out 30 inch piece of straight, steel wire with the instructions to use the entire piece and create a pin. No photos, but Cecilia and Janice both finished very cool, wearable wire brooches.

• Shape - circle, triangle, square
• Form - 3 dimensional shapes, ball, pyramid, etc.
• Space - positive/negative, inside/outside  

•  Value - light, dark, shadow, cast shadow, reflection (chiarscuro)

• Color - primary (red, blue, yellow), secondary (green, orange, purple),  complementary, etc

• Texture - important for PMC artists!! You know this one

We also looked at some online resources for inspiration and ideas.

• keep a sketchbook of your ideas for future use - you WILL forget your great ideas
• draw out your idea before you start
• Carol made her students do 10 drawings before starting a project!
• Subscribe to online blogs such as Jewelry Making Daily, Start with Sketches - Save Money, your own Idea Book, Record your Inspiration or check out the many, many books and publications aimed at jewelry artists.

February KCPMC Guild Meeting

Before-meeting no-host dinner 5:00 p.m. at Zardas BBQ (just west of Quivira at 87th). Everyone is welcome!

TOPIC:
In this meeting, we begin our series of topics to help you design a complete jewelry project. Lead by Carol Harder and Gale Schlagel, they will help you start training your brain to focus on a design. Think about how you can use our next few months' topics to create something spectacular and uniquely yours.

• tear-away texture technique (March) Jen will teach us the technique popularized by Celie Fago
• stone setting by channel, tube, bezel and more (April)
• PMC bezels around ceramic/pottery shards (May)
• custom made end caps (June) 
• kumihimo braiding (July) --  

Materials to bring:

• scissors
• your sketchbook (old or new)
• Elements of Design from last year's design meeting, if you have one. (Carol had us finding pictures of jewelry that illustrated the various principles and elements of design.)
• your ideas for the piece you want to make
• your "mistake" projects

Provided:
         paper, glue sticks, pencils 

ALSO - bring your booboos...a piece you haven't finishd because it somehow doesn't work. We may be able to offer suggestions on how to re-do it, or alter it and make it better. You don't want to waste that precious PMC!!

Don't forget to bring your recent work to show and tell. If you won the January raffle, remember that you are responsible for bringing a new raffle item.

January 2012 Meeting

The January meeting of the Kansas City Precious Metal Clay Guild will be Tuesday, January 17 at 7:00 p.m. at Harder Driving School, 10362 Mastin. Overland Park, KS 66214

The hands-on demo/topic will be lead by one of our newer members, Kim Keane. Kim is a polymer clay artist who will show us how to draw (or use our Zentangle skills learned from Susan Silvy last fall) onto pre-cured polymer clay.

Cured clay pieces will be provided. Please bring your Micron or Millennium Pen #01 and optional 005 pen. Sakura is the name brand of the pens which work best. Available at Michael's. Those who participated in the fall Zentangle meeting received a pen in their kit.

This is the first meeting of 2012 and member dues are now due. $24 per year provides our budget - which will be used to cover materials costs for more hands-on projects at our meetings. That's just $2 a month for lots of fun learning experiences. Check back here or check our website for the 2012 program schedule.

2011 Charm Exchange Workshop

Ready to make charms for our annual exchange?? The October meeting is next week, Tuesday, October 18 beginning at 7 pm.  Dinner at 5pm (for those who are interested) will be at Fans Tea and Dumplings (the little Asian place across the parking lot from Harder Driving School at Mastin and 103^rd).

We have 21 members committed to making charms. It’s too late to add more names, sorry. Members have received an email with the list. See below for a “what to bring” list. 

Everyone will be getting a 16g pkg of PMC3 silver clay and will need to make 22 charms. (Last year we made this many from only a 9g pkg, so it should be much easier this time!) We encourage everyone to use your entire 16g pkg to make 22 similar charms so each person will be exchanging for a comparable set of charms. Use your own style and personality.

We have several new members participating who have limited (or no) experience with metal clay so this will be a great teaching experience for our group. I’m hoping those who know what you are doing will be helpful to these people. If you are not participating this year, you are still welcome to come and play or watch and learn.

You will also sign up with a volunteer who has a kiln to fire your pieces. If you finish them on Tuesday, they can take them, but it is likely you won’t have all your charms completed by the end of the evening. It will be each persons’ responsibility to get your charms to the assigned person and to pick them up when fired. Then at the November meeting we can continue adding finishes, patinas, keumboo or embellishments to complete your charms. We will exchange them at the December meeting.

What to bring:

1.       Money or check (cost for your subsidized clay will be about $15 and there are several extra 9g pkgs available at market price).

2.       Small flat box labeled with your name, email and phone with tissue to hold your unfired charms

3.       PMC working tools – note: be sure they are very clean if you have used them for polymer or other clay!

o   Silicone work mat, clear hard plastic report cover or tile work surface

o   Acrylic roller

o   Old playing cards

o   Cutters (cookie or Kemper cutters, straws,

o   Carving and smoothing tools (dental tools, sculpting tools, etc)

o   Texture plates, rubber stamps

o   Craft knife

o   Needle tool, needle files

o   Tissue blade

o   Spray bottle or mister

o   Air tight container and plastic wrap to keep clay moist.

o   Hand balm or olive oil

o   Brass brush

o cup warmer or foam block to dry pieces on

2-part silicone molding compound is available for members’ use so if you have a custom shape you have carved or found, bring it, make a mold and use it for your charms.

New to this? Check out these links online:

                Art Jewelry Mag Metal Clay Tool Kit pdf – great visual that shows all the tools you may need!

Art Jewelry Magazine’s how-to videos

               

                Questions??? Email me!