Precious Metal Clay for Beginners

This fun and accessible course is an introduction to precious metal clay for beginners. Precious metal clay, or PMC, is a malleable material made of silver particles held in place with an organic binder. It can be hand modelled and pressed into moulds to create intricately detailed pieces, and picks up textures and organic surfaces beautifully. We’ll learn how to make moulds from small found objects, such as shells, buttons, and flowers, and how to use these to create silver charms. We’ll explore rolled textures and the use of shaped cutters to create elements that you can piece together to make your jewellery projects. Using PMC paste you can join these elements to build up your design, and silver wire and findings can be added to create professionally finished pendants, earrings and more. This course is perfect for those with limited hand strength.

Silver Clay was developed by Mitsubishi Materials as a means of re-using tiny silver particles from industry.

Techniques covered:

• Texturing, cutting and modelling wet silver clay
• Carving and shaping dry silver clay
• Using paste to combine sections of silver clay
• Mould making
• Adding silver findings and wire to create jewellery