Saturday, July 11, 2009

Carving Practice- Numbers

Thought I'd get some carving practice in since I haven't tried it yet for metal clay. These are back sides of pieces I haven't fired that have just been sitting around. I carved them in order: 7, 9, 3 and lastly 5. It's easier when the number is bigger w/ the size of nib I was using- a #1 on my Speedball cutter.
The numbers were free-handed w/ pencil onto the copper clay, this was pretty fun and relaxing..as long as you don't mess up, lol.
Another thing I'm wondering is whether it's a little easier to carve the pieces when the clay has just dried instead of these pieces that have been waiting for weeks to be fired? Hope to get around to testing my theory this afternoon if I have time.
Not sure what it is about using odd numbers, they seem to look better to me for some reason.

2 comments:

Lora Hart said...

Carving freshly dried clay is definitely easier than carving weeks old dried out clay. The longer it dries, the more water/moisture evaporates and the more the metal particles shrink together. So it's almost like carving a piece of metal as opposed to a piece of clay.

If you're liking carving, you might want to invest in some Dockyard tools. Verrry sharp and very easy to carve with.

Aja Vaz said...

Thanks for the suggestion, Lora, I'll look into getting some since it's so much fun to carve.