Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist – September 2019

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“C

AN YOU DRAW

cartoons to illustrate

a dry-as-dust safety

manual so people will be willing to

look at it?”

Long ago, when I was studying art

history in grad school (a degree I never

fi nished), I started trying to earn my

way by making art. I put an ad in the

local free paper, off ering freelance

artwork at $10 an hour. People called

me with all kinds of projects, including

that safety manual request. “Sure!” I

responded to that one, never having

drawn cartoons before. I am still very

proud of the result, and the client was

happy. Whatever people wanted done,

I would say yes (except to the guy who

wanted me to paint his body) — then

fi gure it out.

Recently a customer approached me

with this request. “I’d like a ring like this

for my husband for our anniversary,”

she said. “But could you make it

domed on the inside [she meant

comfort-fi t] and on the outside, too?”

Naturally, I said “Sure.” The ring

she showed me was a landscape of

the Blue Ridge Mountains, created in

EZ960 sterling silver clay. So that’s

how I did her husband’s ring as well.

Since I had never done a domed metal

clay ring before, I ended up making six

or eight rings before I was satisfi ed. I

didn’t mind — I was learning something

new. Now you, gentle reader, get to

learn how I did it without all the fuss

and bother.

My technique involves making a

polymer clay mold. If you have worked

with metal clay, you are probably used

to rolling it out and pressing it onto

a texture, possibly using cards or the

like to control the thickness, and that’s

almost the whole process. Here, most

of the process is in the preparation:

you’ll be doing a lot more work with

polymer clay than with metal clay!

For more on molds, see the sidebar

“Mold Making.”

POLYMER CLAY MOLD

AND FORM/“PUSHER”

You can, of course, make an

absolutely plain domed ring —

but where’s the fun in that? So

begin by choosing or creating

the pattern or texture for your

ring. I suspect I started with

just about the hardest goal — a

landscape of mountains, which

I tried both as a fairly literal

interpretation as well as a more

abstract version that might also

be waves.

1

This is the more abstract

design. My landscapes were

created by cutting out ridicu-

lously small bits of diff erently

textured paper and gluing them

to a backing sheet. I included

strips to create slightly raised

edges — one of my client’s spe-

cifi c requests. It is important that

the original you use is positive,

Go beyond flat and make a domed ring with a comfort

fit using metal clay By Noël Yovovich

Fit for

a Finger

123

54 LAPIDARY JOURNAL JEWELRY ARTIST