Fingers Jewellery in New Zealand

On one of my free days in New Zealand, Dan and I took a bus to downtown Auckland to visit museums and galleries. Our first stop was to an art jewelry gallery called "Fingers," which features fabulous mixed media jewelry.

I had visited the online site for years, and didn't realize it was in Auckland until the night before we went there. It was exciting to visit in person. One of my favorite jewelry artists is Karl Fritsch. I am admiring his rings in the photo below.

Dan remarked to the gallery keeper, "These look like they are made from Precious Metal Clay." She shuddered and said, "Noooooo," and then explained that they were made from silver and gold (which, incidentally, precious metal clay is made from).

She is not unusual in her aversion to metal clay. Jewelry galleries often shun the material. I don't get it, because other pieces in the gallery were made from thread, old cell phones, plastic shopping bags and even wiggle eyes! Yes, the plastic ones you glue on children's craft projects. Why is a wiggle eye more valid than a hand-sculpted piece of fine silver or gold?


Despite the gallery keeper's attitude toward Precious Metal Clay, we enjoyed our visit to the gallery. The unique jewelry there was a great source of inspiration.

New Zealand Student Projects

One exciting thing about teaching both at home and abroad is seeing the creativity demonstrated by the students with the materials offered in class. This was the first venue where we used resin clay in conjunction with metal clay. Recently we started selling our own brand of clay called KlayResin. Everyone was excited about using the clay. The students made amazing pieces. These are KlayResin Porcelain with toner images set in Art Clay Silver.

Ingrid Schloemer

Cathie Wells

Clare Gunn

Ingrid Schloemer

Kiwis (not the fruit)

I see now why people love New Zealand. It was green and tropical and from my perspective, it was like Seattle, where I grew up, mixed with Hawaii. The people were really polite--for example, saying "thank you" to the city bus driver as they got off the bus, and then drivers stopped for pedestrians at the crosswalks even if they weren't trying to step out.

Auckland was my first stop to teach for Anne Marie and Peter Grace from Art Clay NZ. they invited me to teach there, and then to travel to Christchurch for another round of classes. The first stop, right after a 15-hour flight, was to the beach near Anne Marie's home. As we walked along, I was intrigued by of the small seashells, twigs and pods native to New Zealand. I became completely obsessed in my search for potential specimens for electroforming, stopping to stuff my pockets with shells like a five-year-old. The seashell hunt, combined with my jet lag, must have scared Anne Marie a little. Within a day, I would be expected to lead a coherent workshop. My side of the conversation consisted of "Huh?" or "Can you repeat that?" while stopping suddenly to pick up one more shell. Later, I taught her about the wonders of copper electroforming, hoping to validate my persistent scavenger hunt.

I met a group of talented Art Clay instructors and jewelry designers in Tacapuna who attended the first class. The workshops consisted of a full day each of electrical etching, resin clay and image transfer techniques on Art Clay Silver. Everyone found unique ways to implement these mediums into their work.

I thought this piece by Ingrid Schloemers was a nice design. She used ITS to transfer a seashell image.

New Use for ITS

Sherri originally developed ITS for transferring images onto non-porous surfaces like metal. But there is another bonus use for the product that she’s been using to get fantastic results. By mixing ITS with pigment powders, you can create a custom palette of colors that you can use to paint on non-porous surfaces. The example here shows colors applied to a fine metal clay bracelet. So if you have some ITS solution and pigment powders, it’s time to get creative. It’s best to practice on some bottle caps or other metal surface to get used to working with the paint before you start on your jewelry piece.

Steps for applying color to metal using ITS:

1. Mix a very small amount of pigment powder with a drop of ITS with a toothpick on waxed paper. A little goes a long way. Use less powder for a transparent watercolor effect, or add more for opaque color. (Wear a respiratory mask to avoid inhaling pigment powder.)

2. Use a toothpick or small paintbrush to apply the paint to your surface. It dries quickly, so work with small amounts. Colors can be layered or mixed as with any other type of paint. If you make a mistake, act quickly and scrape the paint off. After it is set, you will have to sand it off. (For metal clay pieces you can fire the piece to remove the paint.)

3. If you just want color only in the recessed areas of your surface, as in these examples, paint the entire surface first, then scrape the paint off the raised areas with a toothpick after about 10 minutes, when the paint is almost set.

4. Let the ITS paint dry completely. Set the paint with a heat gun for about one minute. This will not only set the paint, but also bring out the color and clarity of the pigment powder for an enamel-like finish.

The Art of Metal Clay revisited

Sherri's groundbreaking book, The Art of Metal Clay, first came out in 2003 and quickly became a classic. It recently underwent a renovation and emerged with a fresh cover and the most current information about this evolving art. Bead and Button magazine ran a nice review in the February 2011 issue.

Metal clay was a new product when Sherri first started experimenting with it, and since then, it has expanded and new products and techniques have been developed by Sherri and other metal clay artists. New material in the book includes:

• The new bronze and copper clays, with must-have instructions for successful firing
• up-to-date, detailed information on firing with stones
• an improved method for calculating accurate ring sizes
• two recently developed techniques for etching metal clay
• new techniques for adding color, including working with pigments and enamels
• all-new, inspiring galleries of work by prominent metal clay artists

Check Sherri's shop here for more information.

Las Vegas Art and Soul

The saying "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" usually applies to untoward behavior best forgotten, but we certainly hope what Sherri experienced for the first time during Art and Soul March 1, 2, and 3rd doesn't stay in Vegas. It was this thing called "relaxation." As Sherri and Rachel Wright left for the show, Sherri's daughters reminded Rachel to assert her right for lunch breaks and sleep (Sherri's been known to forget about these things entirely). Rachel did one better--she introduced Sherri to spa treatments, and much to everyone's surprise, Sherri got hooked. Pampering is now admissible as preparation or recovery from an event. Seaweed wrap, anyone?

The energy level at Art and Soul, however, was high from the start. No matter where Art and Soul is held, the students are enthusiastic and excited about learning new things. Sherri’s first class on making metal clay Pandora-style beads was comprised of a small group of women who giggled and recounted Vegas adventures, but also got a lot of work done. They made stunning silver beads in this class, about which a student said, “You get a lot of bang for your buck.” Sherri’s enthusiasm for this particular class is no doubt part of this energy, because as she says, “I would make these beads all day long if I could.”

Then came two more busy days of classes, etching and silver clay with Faux Bone. Sherri, Rachel, and the students worked hard, and it was satisfying to receive positive feedback from students who said they learned valuable new skills. The artistry level was especially high in the Faux Bone class. Take a look at these finished pieces from the class. Every finished piece was gallery worthy. These are even more amazing up close.

If you want to learn this technique, Sherri will be offering this class at Art and Soul in Hampton, Virginia at the end of April, and then in Philadelphia at the Interweave Beadfest on August 19.

CraziBeautiful

Whether you live in Utah or elsewhere, this is a fun blog to visit. www.crazibeautiful.com They recently posted a feature on my work under Business Savvy



Speaking of crazy beautiful, my goal is to feature more student work on my blog and website because I get to see fantastic pieces from students that needs to be celebrated. This crocheted bracelet was made by Jeannie Thorn who took my crocheted bracelet class at Art Unraveled this summer. Jeannie Thorn Silver Crocheted BraceletCheck out Jeannie’s site and also Adorn Me, which is a brand new jewelry making venue from Art Unraveled. The classes are up now!



I have about 800 other things to post, but for now here is a picture of bronze and copper clay beads. I have been testing and trying to refine the process for making bronze and copper beads. Copper and bronze clay is challenging enough, and so beads are extra hard to make successfully. I found one method for using slip that is so easy. I will publish this idea soon.



and lastly, I hope to catch as many of you as possible about an etching update. If you use a paint pen as a resist for etching, it helps to heat set it with an embossing heat gun prior to etching. It makes a huge difference and the paint holds up under electrical etching without flaking off! I am so excited about this development, since drawing on metal is a great way to make original designs to etch.

Glass Enameling on Silver and Copper Class

Preparing a brand new class to teach is always a challenge but worth the effort. I taught glass enameling this weekend. We made silver metal clay pieces for Champleve with transparent enamels for the first project and then we switched over to copper and torch fired opaque enamels. It was interesting to see the difference in kiln firing vs. torch firing, each has it’s own advantages. I think I speak for all of us that the little Beehive Kiln we used was especially convenient for enameling, but the torch firing was also very fun.



A few things we learned, I had grabbed pieces that I thought were copper but they were copper plated only and therefore did not work. Poor Senta had her glass pop off twice until we finally figured out that it was another metal underneith. I should have known better when she cleaned the piece and it didn’t look right. The piece pictured above is her Champleve piece which turned out perfect! We also learned that glass takes no prisoners and so patience is required. I was very impressed with everyone’s creativity. AND a big thank you to Rena for her advice to explore torch firing, I think I am going to keep playing with fire now, her pieces took advantage of using firescale as part of the design. Jane and Kelly were new to metal clay, and so the class was a lot to tackle but they made fabulous pieces too.



Glass and metal are really fun to combine, I for one am going to pursue more techniques, well at least that’s the plan anyway.

Copper Clay

I love copper clay! This is a sneak preview of a bracelet I made using copper clay for my upcoming book. It was textured using etched copper plates I made using Dan’s E3 Etch.

A bunch of people have etching questions from the Bead and Button Show. Here is the link to my site for the information page http://www.sherrihaab.com/etch/ And Dan is trying to carve out time to build a new model which will do multiple etchings at one time!

Metal Clay Class 101

Tonight I promised the attendees from the craftcast metal clay101 class that I would post a picture of Michelle’s ring. She made this ring without a mandrel and used only a needle tool to write script in the wet clay. It is very tiny, like a pinky ring.



I etched this brass cuff bracelet this weekend. I used a pen to draw freehand on the brass and then etched it with the E3 Etch controller. I want to make more of these, if only there were more hours in the day.


Here is another view of the etched bracelet.