17 August 2009

water etching troubles

i do so love to do water etching.
something about painting the wax on and then washing away the layers of clay.... i really enjoy the process... wax, wash; wax, wash...
i am currently having a problem with the process. because i do the waxing and washing steps over and over the water seems to be washing away some of the wax and then it also bites into the clay that i thought was covered. so the geometric forms end up a wee bit on the organic side! not really a problem with florals, but it makes the geometrics looks a bit....well, wambly. you can sort of see it here in the unfired picture and then the results...not to mention the gigantic crack!! it's funny, i had attributed that big crack to anxiously cooling the steel container too quickly at the end (i heard a funny pinging noise coming out of the container after i removed it from a 179 farenheit kiln). but i mentioned that i was having some technical problems to my wonderful spouse (who doesn't always listen exactly 100% when i start talking about jewelry) and he said "oh, is it too thick?" to which i said "OH!". stopped me right in my tracks! i have another similar one i'm going to run at the slower ramp for thicker pieces.
it's also kind of a mystery to me how to get realiable, smooth, unblemished surfaces in bronze. this is a tear-away circle pattern. it's VERY subtle, so if i went at it with sanders, i'd ruin my tear-away. so i burnished the circles before i fired. the next is deceptive because the circles are shiny, but i burnished them after they came out of the kiln and i couldn't see ANY evidence that i'd burnished those circles the first time.
more to come....

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Stunning! What a pleasure to look at!

Barb Fernald said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Barb Fernald said...

What I meant to say, These are beautiful! I love your water etching every time. The detail is amazing to me.
I wonder if the crack had to do with the piece not being 100% dry before it was fired? So much to learn about this base metal clay.
Your work is inspiring me to get my bronze clay back out. I still have no idea for SB. How are your designs coming along?
xoxo

holly kellogg said...

well, my experiments with bronze are going awry, so my ideas are not really jell-ing....the water etching really only seems appropriate for florals (at least the way i'm doing it)..and my last submission was a water etched floral and, y'know, i want to place a bit higher than 6th!!! so last night i started in on another idea, but i'm running out of time...
xoxo

Barb Fernald said...

I smell Saul Bell for you this year!
Crazy busy few weeks here. I hope to get back in the studio tomorrow!
xoxo