wax resist on Metal Clay - part 2

Yesterday, I started with a colorbox stamp strip. Linda let me cut it up to show the section that I used here. What a gal!!! Wanted you to see how it really does look like a colorburst and I don't think they meant for me to see the Star of David in it! LOL!!!



Remember I was worried about what the wax resist would do in the kiln? Well, I need to back up. I applied several layers, allowing it to "nearly" dry between each layer. If I remember right - maybe 4 layers. It was definitely thick. It went on in fairly straight lines....considering that I wasn't worried about how straight they were at all...I was just following the lines of the stamped image! So, I fired it to 1472 degress and held for 30 minutes. Took it out and quenched it. Saw immediately that the wax resist had not burned off.

My next step was to simply take my brass brush to the piece to remove the fire scale. Well, guess what.....every ounce of the wax resist came off with just a couple swipes of my brush!!! Yeah!!!

I've taken the piece and used alcohol ink in the recesses of the area that were deepened using the water etching method. The Star of David is in 2 levels, so I polished the highest level in the center of the star...so you can hopefully see that there are 3 levels of metal to this.....completely accomplished with water and wax resist.

Great product!



Totally happy with my first water etched piece! Can't wait to get home and try some of my other stamps.....oh what the heck? Maybe I'll draw something later today!

Only today and tomorrow left to play at Linda's! It is pouring down rain today, so we have postponed our "field trip" to Branson until tomorrow. That just means we have to play harder today! LOL!

I must say that some of the fine silver and Friendly Plastic pieces that we are making are incredible!!! Stay tuned for more fun posts....live from Ozark Missouri!!!

Wax resist on Metal Clay

Well, I'm here at Linda's, experimenting with some of the products that I picked up at Amaco last week. I took a jar of "Wax Resist". It is normally used in their ceramics department. While I was in Chicago, one of the seminars was on watercolor etching on metal clay and they talked about using a variety of products as a resist.

Colleen and I have been using water on clay to smooth it out for the last 2 years. But to apply a resist, then apply water in the areas where there is no resist to achieve multiple layers....like a carving...well, how fun is that?

I stamped into a rectangle piece of clay. And in this piece, I saw a Star of David over on the right. It's really a starburst in the stamp...but I thought that perhaps I could apply resist to the starburst and get a Star of David out of it.

Amaco also has an entire line of clay modeling tools. Makes sense as they sell kilns. But I had never used them before. I especially liked the set of T Tools and the double-ended clay shapers are great.

I don't know if you can see the difference here, but I was able to etch quite deeply into the grooves by applying water with a brush and sponging it off. The areas where I painted the resist remained untouched by the water. It did not leech up under the resist either, so I'm quite happy with it so far. Of course, you allow the resist to dry completely before you start to etch with water.

The piece is now dry and I'm about ready to fire it. It's such a feeling when I experiment with a product for the first time. Will the resist burn off? Will the etching appear? How hot do I need to fire to get the resist to burn off? Will it burn into the clay and ruin the whole piece???

Stay tuned as it will be a couple hours before we pop it out of the kiln....I'll be posting the results tomorrow night along with a few other pieces we've been working on.

I have to say it's been delightful weatherwise here in Ozark MO. This afternoon, we did the first ever blog talk radio show for Friendly Plastic. Great fun!!! Tomorrow we plan to pop down to Branson as I've never been there. Not sure what I'm expecting...but I know it will be great fun!