Beachscape Set

My adventure in metal clay continues with this custom order set.  You know, dear readers, that I find custom orders to be both exhilarating and stressful.  There’s so much pressure to get it right and satisfy both myself and my patron.  I’m learning with each project that I’m much more demanding than my customers (so far), and I’m trying to be a bit more gentle and forgiving with myself without lowering my standards.

In the creation of these pieces, I was able to sharpen my skills in layering, attaching bails, setting stones in syringe clay, carving dry clay, and using syringe clay to enhance a texture.  I had struggled with setting stones in my introductory class, and I feel so much more comfortable with the technique now, after completing this assignment.

I did a similar piece in my class at Folk School and you can see the original piece here (on the top row near the center). It so happened that two people wanted that piece at the same time, along with matching earrings.  I was happy to oblige by creating a second pendant and two pairs of earrings.  All of these pieces were inspired by the landscape tutorials in Hadar Jacobson’s awesome book, The Handbook of Metal Clay:  Textures and Forms.