This is a piece I've been working on for a few weeks. I was in Krakow late last year, and bought some beautiful Baltic amber beads and cabochons. Have been wanting to use them in my creations for a while. Anyhow, got out my bronze clay which has been sitting in the fridge for a few months, and started playing with it. Then decided that I'd carve a stamp out of a carving block to texture the base of the superficial part of the pendant. The pendant was hand moulded with bronze clay and made in two parts, with bits of wire at the back of both pieces which I then used to wire them and the beads together and "sandwich" the beads in between. I used moulds to make the skull and beast head. The beast didn't have very obvious lower fangs originally, so I did a little "dental work" for him by sticking two rice-shaped pieces of clay to the lower part of the mouth, and filed, sanded and sharpened them to make the fangs. Also set a couple of olivine cubic zirconia into the pendant. and added a patina to the finished piece with liver of sulphur and Gilder's paste. Am really pleased with how it turns out. The beads in the pendant are amber and citrine, the drop is lemon quartz, and the necklace is made up of various beads including amber, Swarovski crystals and some cute little metal skull beads. The necklace is actually quite long - I had to tuck it up at the back of the bust for photo purposes. The pendant is also quite sparkly in real life because of those gorgeous faceted beads, the czs, and the high polish of parts of the bronze. I really LOVE working with bronze clay and have started on another couple more pieces, so, please watch this space!
Hope you like the piece and please click on the photos if you'd like a larger view.
