Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Texture Plates for Metal Clay

After using Barbara Becker Simon's hand-carved texture plates, I just had to give it a personal try. I rolled out a sheet of polymer clay on the thickest setting with my pasta machine, sandwiched it between two sheets of glass, and baked as directed in my dedicated toaster oven.

Then I pulled out the U-shaped micro-carving tool from Dockyard and started playing. The first plate got mostly doodles, but the second plate got a bird-on-a-branch scene. The polymer clay carves like butter.


Since I had bronze out and handy, I pressed it into the plate to see how well the detail came out. I need to carve a bit deeper in some areas, but mostly I'm thrilled with this first attempt. I'm thinking it will probably turn into the lid for a box or a plate for the front of a book. And I'm thinking I need the different size tools as well!