Bird A Month 4/12 - Copper Birdie

For my April Bird a Month I made another little sculpture. This one is made from copper using Art Clay Copper. He is not a particular breed! He measures approx 34mm from beak to tail by about 20mm high.

I do like the colour of the copper but I also find that working with copper does not really agree with me. It irritates my hands even when I use a protective lotion like Gloves in a Bottle.

I think it will be back to my first love of silver for me ;-)

Art Clay Copper Now For Sale

Good News!
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I now have Art Clay Copper for sale in my ebay shop ArtClayUK. Unlike previous Copper clays this does not need a stainless steel pan and charcoal to fire it. It fires at 970c on the open shelf in a kiln. Once fired you quench it in cold water straight from the kiln. This removes most of the black firescale. Use jewellers pickle to remove any black remaining.
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You can make items just in copper like the mask above or combine them with Art Clay Silver like the pendant below.
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To combine them you make your copper pieces first and fire them. Copper and Silver will not fuse together so you need to capture the copper with the silver. In the little pendant pictured below the silver goes through the centre of the copper and captures the copper petals in place. I have set a little cz into the silver as well. Which brings me to another point. If you are going to use any heat sensitive parts in your piece (like the ruby cz) DON'T quench in cold water after adding the silver or you will shatter your stone. Remove the fired piece from the kiln and just cover with a piece of ceramic fibre and leave to cool. You will find quite a lot of the firescale will ping off as it cools (hence covering the piece!) and you can pickle it once cool to remove any that remains.
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The packs of Copper Clay come with an information sheet in English. The cost is £15.25 for 50g so if you have a large project in mind which was going to cost too much in silver why not give it a go in copper and have a play :)