Liver of Sulphur and Silver Clay in Glorious Color

by Susan Whelan
(Prince Edward Island, Canada)

Sea Cow Head Lighthouse

Silver clay has become my latest passion and as quickly as I can afford it, I get a new envelope of clay and a new lesson on what I can and cannot do with it.

Each piece teaches me something more and it's limited only by the fact that it has to be torch fired.

To me, the best thing about it is that you can create a piece of original art in pure silver! Or .999 if you want to be totally accurate.

The tutorials online and in books teach you to make earrings and beads and all kinds of things that you can buy already made.

I don't want to make something that is already available mass-produced and probably better made.

The joy of silver clay is that you can create something totally your own.

In my journey of learning, I read a multitude of articles about using Liver Of Sulphur (LOS).

My first experiments weren't bad. I tried it plain and heated, and got nice definition in the lines.

I tried it with some glass cleaner in the mix and got a little bit of iridescence. (Didn't have ammonia on hand, knew the glass cleaner had ammonia in it, so made do.)

And then I found another article that sounded interesting and tried it. (Outside, on my barbecue - got some funny looks from the neighbors!)

I had a mason jar with very hot water and a very small pea-sized piece of LOS, a mason jar with very hot plain water, and a plastic bottle with cold plain water.

My pendant had been brushed with a brass brush and tumbled for half and hour, then rinsed thoroughly.

I hung it from a piece of wire and heated it in the plain hot water.

Then a very short dip in the LOS and into the cold water. Then repeated the whole process several times, but making sure the pendant heated first, before the dip in LOS.

As a disclaimer, LOS is weird stuff - it doesn't always do the same thing twice, but I've found that this method is fairly consistent.

The square pendant shown above is a picture of one of my favorite lighthouses and is meant to be a sunset scene.

You might notice a bit of gold - I had hoped to put gold foil on the setting sun but that lesson needs more reading and more work!

Susan Whelan
Susanna Originals

Comments for
Liver of Sulphur and Silver Clay in Glorious Color

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Lovely color effect
by: Rena

Nice work - it reminds me of old photos that have been delicately hand-colored in places.

What a wonderful effect to play with, and a cool way to make your silverwork unique.

I understand completely about not wanting to focus on creating pieces that are more or less already available.

It's much more fun to break new ground and create original things such as your lovely and unusual lighthouse pendant!

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your work with this neat technique for embellishing silver creations.

I hope you'll post more as you continue experimenting with color!

LOS experiments
by: Karen Zaorski

I really like the effect you were able to achieve on this pendant. Have you tried using the LOS gel that I have seen advertised? I am curious to try it out myself. It seems like you could use it with a brush easier to get to those parts you what to highlight on your heated metal.

Karen Zaorski
jewelryartbykaren.etsy.com

LOS Gel
by: Susan Whelan

Karen, I had a heck of a time finding LOS in Canada in solid form, because in its liquid form, it's considered hazardous material and I couldn't import it from the U.S. Not sure about the gel but I'm still having fun with the chunky form!

LOS
by: Karen Zaorski

Hi Susan: I tried to get a company that travels to bead shows with their products to bring some to the show so I could purchase it, but because it's considered a hazardous material (!!!) they were unable to. Wouldn't want them to endanger the rest of their products. lol

Wishing you all the best, Karen