The Mighty Oak

Once again my sister and I have been playing with 'Silver Clay'. There was a little bit of clay left over from the last time we 'played', not enough to make anything too large so we turned the clay into paste so we could paint leaves with it.

I love Oak Trees, they are the quintessential 'English' tree and not far from to us there is a tree that is reputed to be upwards of 600 years old. It is very gnarled and the massive trunk has had to have a metal brace placed round it to preserve it as the trunk has split. With true British spirit it comes to life every year and is beautiful.



So we decided to use oak leaves, not I hasten to add taken from the 600 yr old tree! They were taken from my sisters tree. The leaf needs to be washed gently before starting, once that was done we could paint to our hearts content. Not a fast process as each layer has to be painted on thinly and dried before the next one can be painted on. In all it took 10 layers of silver clay paste for it to become strong enough to withstand use. Once totally dry they were fired and polished up. The veining was highlighted by adding 'liver of sulphur' to hot water and immersing them for a couple of minutes before re polishing to remove it from unwanted areas. A 'bail' has been added to the back of each one so I can hang them from a chain etc. We've both ended up with 2 beautiful silver (925) leaves.