I'm somewhat perplexed as to how they came to be. These embellishments were made with FASTfire BRONZclay™, which were fired in layers of activated coconut carbon and are supposed to come out of the kiln with a uniformly golden bronze color. However, I have a rainbow of colors - orange, yellow, olive, mint green, and rose gold! There are several factors that may have contributed to the various shades of coppery colors and hints of green. I actually did two firings. The first was in my Paragon SC2 kiln and the metal clay was placed in a ceramic firing pot and fired at 1525 degrees for a total of three hours. The pieces came out of the kiln rather dull and heavily blackened with carbon. I placed them in my jeweler's tumbler for several hours, which brought up a bit of shine, but they still were quite dark. I then soaked them in a mild pickle solution, which removed the black. But after rinsing the pieces, I noticed quite a few were still very dull and under fired. So I did a second firing, this time placing them in layers in the same coconut carbon, but in a stainless steel firing vessel. And I fired them in my Evenheat 360 kiln at 1545 degrees for another three hours. After rinsing, to my surprise, these brilliant colors are the final result! Oh the serendipity of it all! I think I'll make some polymer clay embellishments to go along with these. I have an idea for a bead embroidered evening bag that these would be perfect for!
Comments