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Sunday, July 11, 2010

Cooper's Copper Clay Class

Yesterday, Saturday July 10th was a day I had posted on my fridge for months. I have a habit of forgetting things since the baby was born so I wrote  myself a note to remind me that the clay class was on the 10th. The note did help till we got used to seeing it there and it began to get overlooked. I almost forgot to register, almost.
I faxed the form in just in time to get $10 off my class fee. I love to save money so that was great. I had hubby watch the baby and off I went, in the torrential rain to my first class in ages.
I was all prepared to take a bronze clay class so when I got there and they said copper I was confused but excited. I love copper and didn't even know there was such an animal as copper clay. (I know - under a rock.)
The class was great! I had brought a mold of an item I wanted to make and the teacher - Ray Cooper, lol Cooper/copper - let me use it. There were a lot more people than are normally in the classes at this show but that made it fun, 7 including me.
Pieces drying on a griddle. They will get filed prior to going in the kiln.


Filing dry pieces.


The kiln.


Lots of filing. We made such a mess.


Tools.


The cool thing about this clay is that it can be torch fired if the pieces are small. 
That's our teacher doing a demo firing.


Copper hearts I made ready to be turned into jewelry.


Copper bird I made with a heat patina.


Copper piece with a heat patina from the mold I brought with me.

What a great day I had, during the class we got an hour lunch break while the kiln was firing our pieces up to 1778 degrees for 30 minutes. During the break I went shopping tot he Innovative Beads Expo and picked up a couple of things that I needed and a few things that weren't on my list. I can't wait to get back to beading! I didn't realize how much it has been calling me these last few weeks of playing.
......Off to play with my new stuff...... I hope you all had as great a weekend as I did.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Ohh how Awesome!! I would of been so excited to be there wow that is so great! Nothing like hands on!

Barbara Lewis said...

These are so great! Wow! Makes me want to do copper clay!

Cindy said...

Your class looked like a lot of fun and that you learned a lot of cool techniques.... I especially like the heat patina! I took a PMC class a few years ago and loved it, but sadly I haven't found time to keep up with it (after buying all of the supplies and clay!).

steufel said...

Love the hearts!

Pretty Things said...

This is something I've never done but have wanted to do! Lucky you, and way to go!