playing catch-up

I continued to have problems with the powdered clay made by a well known PMC artist and instructor who shall-not-be-named.  Some batches melted into unrecognizable blobs.  Some were sintered on the outside (like the photos in the previous post), but brown powder on the inside.  Advice on her user forum showed me that these were not uncommon problems and the solution offered of doing continual test batches was not one that I wanted to waste my time, labor, or hard earned cash on.  Art Clay Silver fired beautifully.  So did FastFire Bronze.  So I have stuck with those and I am excited and inspired by the results.

No metal clay here - just finally finishing a piece started a long time ago and abandoned during a creative dry spell.

Another orphaned piece that got united with a chain from something else that hadn't worked out.  Big cool Tibetan silver(y) bead in the center.  Like a shield.

One of those YUGE Thai terracotta amulets - hanging from a vintage Suffolk County bus token.  But the "S" could certainly stand for Susan or Sarah - or Super.

And the rest are all PMC.  Silver, copper, and mostly bronze.  Which I love the best.  Which strikes me as odd because I don't really care much for gold - except gold paint.  Bronze though - I think of the Bronze Age, of course, archaeologist used-to-wannabee that I am.  The clay that I am using has the ancient proportions of copper and tin.  Both mined even in prehistoric times in Cornwall, by the way.  Anyone else hooked on "Poldark"?