TIME, making a silver necklace sundial

The most fun thing coming out of this assignment was realizing a sundial can be anything, since it’s purely about casting a shadow that’s telling. I wanted an excuse to play around with clay that when heated turns into pure silver, so I decided to make a flower with a stem tall enough to cast shadow.

There’s something to be said about how

Materials: 50g of Art Clay Silver, Clay Shaping tools, Torch 1300 degrees, butane gas, water

Process

For this to work as a sundial, the flower itself must be quite low and the stem should be high so that the shadow is clear. I ran into a number of issues with the material. When shaping, it wasn’t melting into itself and was often cracking, which left me thinking it might crack when fired (it did not!)

After a few hours shaping, I realized the shape might be a little too sugestive for my taste and that’s how I ended up with the stem that bifurcates.

I started preparing for firing. Silver melts at 961 degrees, so with my torch that can reach 1300o I was afraid the design would melt. Eventually, I realized that the whole piece would have needed to melt at the same time - TBD. Next step is polishing.