Arts and Crafts
Adult Courses
New for 2010
CS:
46
Silver Clay Jewellery
Design and make your own unique pieces of jewellery using this exciting and versatile material. Unfired silver clay looks and feels just like porcelain clay. It consists of very fine particles of silver mixed with a non-toxic binder. During firing the binder burns away, leaving fine silver that can be hallmarked. In this course you will look at jewellery design and learn the basic techniques of handling the silver clay, how to shape and form it, create textures and make hollow pieces. We will explore adding colour using glass enamel and also explore stone setting. You will learn how to make moulds and how to use these to create your own individual pieces. By the end of the course, you will have designed and created at least five pieces of real silver jewellery.
All materials and tools, as well as white cubic zirconium cut gems and a selection of semi precious cabochon stones, will be supplied.
This course is suitable for complete beginners, no previous experience needed.
In this course you will learn all about the basic techniques of using silver clay. You will be able to explore rolling, texturing and cutting the silver clay and how to produce different effects. You will learn how to set stones both with prong settings and with bezel settings, how to polish, burnish and finish pieces as well as experiment with antiquing finishes. You will also learn about enamelling and how to create textures and patterns on the silver clay to reflect transparent enamelling.
You will be introduced to different moulding compounds and learn how to make your own moulds and how to use these to capture the impression in silver clay.
We will make moulds using a moulding material that picks up fine detail. Buttons, cameos, jewellery with interesting detail, a leaf or coin, a charm, anything can be used to make a mould. I will bring a selection of items that you can use, but do bring your own selection of interesting shapes and textures to mould.
I will supply 3mm and 5mm white cubic zirconium and 3mm and 5mm silver prong settings, as well as a selection of semi precious cabochon stones. If you wish to use other stones, the best place to get them is Kernowcraft.
Their website is http://www.kernowcraft.com/.
If you want cut faceted gems you will need to order a silver prong setting the same size of the gem e.g. 8mm round gem will need 8mm round silver prong setting.
They also have a large selection of cabochon stones. You will not need prong settings for cabochons as we will make these settings from silver clay.
After each piece is made it will be left to dry thoroughly and then fired in the kiln.
Do bring any sketches, designs or photos of pieces you would like to make.
