Melinda Mulcahy creates truly personal keepsakes from precious Fine Silver. Her work is sent worldwide.
Completely self-taught, it has taken years to perfect this notoriously difficult product that is Precious Metal Clay, a 100% recycled product. Simply by trial and error.
To get the best out of precious clay, you have to understand its behavior and work with its strange anomalies, as changes naturally occur during every stage and it’s not an exact science. As is the nature of a recycled product, sometimes it’s best to accept the imperfections and incorporate them into your design, rather than fight them, as Melinda found out.
Starting with a good image/stamp making set such as Imagepac, together with a very crisp and clean white on black image, Melinda makes her own artworks.
Once the stamp is made and dried, on a clean area, sculpt the clay using a good Stanley knife and a very clean base plate. Even the smallest particles will imprint onto the clay, so take off any woolen jumpers and close out drafts.
Once the clay is completely dry, about 24 hours later, carefully sand using a 280 grit soft pad and brush away all dust. Place in a kiln, ramp up to 850? hold for 45 minutes and allow to cool – allow 4 hours.
Brush the piece with a steel brush to remove all white clay residue, at this stage you can dip your piece into an oxidising agent and sand your piece to whatever texture you prefer. For a highly polished finish, you will need lots of elbow grease, but 3M sanding paper from your local hardware store will help eradicate major imperfections, working upwards in grit from 240, 400 and 600. You can get use the softer pads starting at 180, 220 and finish with 280. Finally tumble for 2 hours with shot and tumbling compound get a nice sheen.
Melinda is giving away a personalised beanie friendship bracelet worth £24 + delivery, personalisation either your initial on your choice of coloured cord. For your chance to win, simply tell us which your favourite Melinda Mulcahy creation is. Simply visit the site using the link, then come back to Craftgossip.com to comment below as to what your favourite piece is and why!
Competition Open to UK residents only
Competition Closes August 1st