More haste, less speed

I've been busy today with my silver clay and am certainly learning the lesson of 'more haste, less speed'.

I wanted to try out my new mould making stuff called 'Oyumaru'. It's amazing - little strips of neon coloured plastic-like material that softens in hot water. I made a few moulds from some rubber stamps I had from a while back and was really pleased with the detail. Below are the pieces I made after drying and filing.

After taking this photo, I went on to fire them on my gas hob and when I did my heart went 'pop' (quite literally!). Obviously I hadn't left it to air dry completely. Well, in fact I had tried to speed up the process by putting them in my oven at a low temperature but foolishly hadn't thought that the heart would need more time to dry. The result was the heart had a little volcano shape popping out of it near the bottom. I tried to file it out but it changed the texture pattern. All was not lost, however, as I ended up filing and hammering out all the texture and then re-texturing it with my little pointed hammer. I'm actually quite pleased with the result. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

p.s. I've now made 'heart #2' from the same mould and have sensibily left it to air dry overnight!