Ring numero uno in Meich’s book (see last entry) is air drying now, and will be ready to fire tomorrow. The kiln is busy tonight with some clasps for two copper bracelets that didn’t come out the first time.
So… would have been easier had I worked with a purchased ring ‘blank’ as called for in the book. A blank is a band that is already manufactured. I have made ring bands before, so I hand made my band. The hardest part of this ring was controlling the syringe so that the squiggles didn’t just look like a big mess. Woah baby! If you haven’t practiced with controlling the syringe clay, you may want to. I wiped it off twice - third times the charm they say, so I just left it.
First pass – tried to just do free form … no pattern. Looked bad. Then I did across the ring. Looked bad. Then I did, as the example used, length wise lines … better. Maybe I was just better at controlling the line by now. I took a palette knife and cleaned all the syringe clay off the surface of the ring twice, which is hard to do on an unfired band, as the wet clay adheres and essentially melds into becoming part of the band. It would be much easier to wipe off it you use a ring blank, or fire your band before you add the squiggles.
It’s not like I’ve never used the syringe clay before, either. Just a heads up.
Firing the pieces and pictures posted soon!