silver clay http://www.artclay.co.uk/

http://www.artclay.co.uk/Art Clay, sometimes called silver clay, gold clay, metal clay, or precious-metal clay, is made by Aida Chemical Industries in Japan: it's a composite material, made of fine silver or gold powder and a harmless water-based organic binder.

Straight from the packet, it looks and feels like plasticene: so you can shape it easily, using familiar modelling tools and similar techniques. Its flexibility makes it a versatile material, ideal for home and business jewellers, metalsmiths, craftworkers, modelmakers, glass studios, potteries, and art colleges.

You can design and make your own unique anklets, beads, bracelets, brooches, charms, earrings, keepsakes, necklaces, ornaments, rings, and seasonal decorations.

Silver clay is available in two forms, Original and the newer 650: Original fires at 800°C and 650 at 650°C, held for 30 minutes. The fired metal is solid silver, which can be hallmarked as pure 999 silver.

Gold clay fires at 990°C, held for 60 minutes. The fired metal is a solid alloy made from 91.7% gold and 8.3% silver, which can be hallmarked as 22 carat gold.

You can add silver clasps to clothes, overlays to gift cards, motifs to handbags, highlights to wood, ceramics, glass, and shells, and make complex pieces using cutters, moulds, shaping tools, stamps, and texture sheets.

All the products mentioned on these pages are in the on-line shop: use the shop link below the menu bar near the top of the page.Navigating Art Clay UK.

The menu bar is the horizontal line near the top of the page. To navigate, click the links above and below the menu bar. They'll change colour just before you click so you'll know you're on the right words.

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SHOPPING

Art Clay UK Prices Include UK VAT And UK Mainland Delivery.

You can shop here now: on line or by phone with a card, or by post with a cheque. Prices include UK VAT and insured door-to-door UK-mainland delivery: there are no other charges. For other destinations, mail or call.

ART CLAY: A GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Silver, Gold, And Art Clay.

Alchemy is a medieval belief that non-precious metals could be turned into gold. Although personal desire and chemical optimism did not create gold from something not-gold, the magic of the idea is still very powerful.

Suppose you want to make a silver heart for a necklace. You need silversmith's skills to cut, file, smooth, drill, and polish a piece of silver. It takes a long time, mistakes are expensive, and offcuts are hard to recycle.

Now suppose you want to make a modelling-clay heart. You need no special skills to shape, smooth, and dry a piece of clay. It doesn't take long, mistakes can be corrected, and offcuts can be kneaded back into a re-useable piece of clay.

Now make an ArtClay Silver heart, shaping it just as you did with the modelling clay. Dry it, fire it, and it turns into a shining solid-silver heart. The alchemy magic is that it's real metal.

Art Clay is a clay-like material made of fine silver or gold powder and water-soluble organic binders. As it's fired, the binders vapourise, releasing very small amounts of non-toxic carbon dioxide and water vapour, and the metal powder sinters, leaving solid 999 silver or 22 carat gold. Real metal, not something that just looks like metal.

ART CLAY

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver And Gold As A Clay, Paste, And Paper, Or In A Syringe.

Art Clay, sometimes called silver clay, gold clay, metal clay, or precious-metal clay, is made by Aida Chemical Industries. It's available as 650 silver clay, original silver, slow dry, slow tarnish, water paste, oil paste, overlay paste, syringe clay, paper clay, gold clay, gold paste, gold foil, copper clay, and cork clay.

Art Clay is easy to fire in your kiln: put your dry pieces in the kiln and programme the temperature and hold-time. Or you can try it on your kitchen gas hob, on a camping gaz ring, or with a butane torch.

The firing temperature and time are important: metal clay has to sinter, not melt. There's a difference between sintering and melting: during sintering, the binder in the clay vapourises and the metal powder particles bond to produce solid metal whereas, during melting, the metal powder particles liquify and lose their original clay-shape.

Comprehensive instructions are included with the product although, as with many materials, make time to experiment rather than accept general recommendations as definitive.

If you're currently using PMC, try Art Clay. There are differences in the feel, the shrinkage, the strength, the surface lustre, the product range, the pricing, and the general commercial setup if you're running a serious business.

SILVER AND GOLD CLAYS

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver And Gold As A Clay.

Art Clay water-based silver and gold clays look and feel like dull grey and dull yellow plasticene or polymer clay, and can be shaped easily using familiar modelling tools and similar techniques. Silver clay comes in regular, slow-dry, and slow-tarnish: gold in regular.

The slow dry silver clay stays malleable for about four times longer than the regular clay: so it's ideal for beginners, or anyone making thin, delicate, or intricate shapes.

The slow tarnish silver clay is slower to tarnish. However, remember that all silver, not just Art Clay silver, tarnishes due to environmental oxidants and pollutants.

Silver clay, after firing, is solid silver, which can be hallmarked as pure 999 silver. Gold clay, after firing, is a solid gold and silver alloy, which can be hallmarked as 22 carat gold: 91.7% gold and 8.3% silver.

Silver clay can be combined with a wide range of materials, before firing: beads, copper, dichroic glass, pearls, porcelain, polymer clay, semiprecious gems, and fine silver findings.
Its easy-to-use flexibility makes it a versatile material, ideal for home hobbies, jewellery making, craft businesses, glass studios, ceramic cafes, metalsmiths, modelmakers, and potteries.

SILVER AND GOLD PASTES

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver And Gold As A Paste.

Art Clay water-based silver clay paste, oil-based silver paste, water-based silver overlay paste, and water-based gold paste, look and feel like dull grey and dull yellow double cream, and can be applied with modelling tools or a soft moist brush. The water-based silver paste comes in regular and slow-tarnish: the gold in regular.

The water-based silver paste has three main uses: to paint onto a mould; to add shape to existing unfired silver clay; or to stick two pieces of unfired silver clay together.

The oil paste has three main uses: to add shape to existing fired silver clay; to stick two pieces of fired silver clay together; or to repair a broken fired silver piece.

The overlay paste has one main use: to add silver highlights, texture, or decoration to fired silver clay, glazed ceramics, glass, or porcelain.

The water-based gold paste has four main uses: to paint onto a mould; to add shape to existing unfired gold clay; to add gold highlights, texture, or decoration to fired silver clay, glazed ceramics, glass, or porcelain; or to stick two pieces of unfired gold clay together.

SILVER CLAY IN A SYRINGE

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver In A Syringe.

Art Clay water-based silver clay in a syringe looks and feels like dull grey toothpaste, and can be squeezed out to make fine patterns. The silver clay comes in regular and slow tarnish.

It has three main uses: to create delicate patterns, either on unfired silver clay or on a cork clay mould; to add shape to existing unfired silver clay; or to stick two pieces of unfired silver clay together.

SILVER CLAY AS PAPER

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver As A Paper.

Art Clay silver clay as paper looks and feels like thick soft aluminium foil, and can be cut easily with a modelling knife or a shaped cutter.

It has two main uses: to create flat, folded, curved, or hollow shapes; or to add shape to existing unfired silver clay. Although it can be used for origami-like shapes, it's thicker than ordinary paper so can't be folded and refolded neatly.

CORK CLAY

Aida Art Clay: Real Cork As A Clay.

Art Clay cork clay is a clay-like material made from fine cork particles and water-soluble organic binders. It looks and feels like thick biscuit-mix, and can be shaped with modelling tools or a soft moist brush.

It has one main use: to create a mould on which to build a metal-clay shape, particularly for a delicate or hollow piece that needs support until it's fired. The cork burns away during firing.

ART CLAY: NOTES

Art Clay.

All metal clays shrink slightly during firing, so it's important to do some tests before starting on your best ideas. However, it does mean that details and textures become more focused.

All particulates represent a health risk if they're breathed in, so it's very important to wear a HEPA mask when mixing powders, handling charcoal, sanding dried clays, and cleaning out your kiln. Ideally, use protective glasses.

Clays, charcoals, dust masks, electric kilns, hot gloves, magnetic polishers, protective glasses, rotary tumblers, shelf paper, and other tools and materials, are in the on-line shop: use the shop link below the menu bar near the top of the page.

ART CLAY UK

Aida Art Clay: Real Silver And Gold As A Clay, Paste, And Paper, Or In A Syringe.

This internet resource is provided by Cherry Heaven, an international distributor, on-line shop, and support centre for kilns, accessories, tools, materials, and tumblers. It's not a bead, ceramics, crafts, glass, or metal-clay home-business, selling a few things to a market niche.

As it's an on-line resource, there isn't a paper catalogue or a price list. However, you can mail or call a technician about kilns,power supplies, public area safety, a special project, business ideas, diagnostics, repairs, or reselling opportunities.

CHERRY HEAVEN

Cherry Heaven Limited, West Holme Cottage, West Holme, Wareham, BH20 6AQ, Dorset, England.

Cherry Heaven is an on-line shop in West Holme, Dorset, South-West England. The surrounding countryside includes green farmland, dramatic heritage cliffs, pretty stone cottages, historic buildings, sandy beaches, protected coves, open heathland, hill-top panoramic views, and peaceful villages. And lively seaside resorts. To look at some photos, use the dorset link on the front page.

Cherry Heaven is an EU distributor for US-made Paragon Kilns, and has been commended for an outstanding performance as one of Paragon's top-selling distributors over 2007 to 2014: a pleasing outcome since the UK is only one third the area of Texas and one fortieth the area of the US.

Cherry Heaven was the name of the business in West London then the shop in Corfe Castle village. Although there's no longer a shop, Cherry Heaven is still the working name.

PARAGON INDUSTRIES

Paragon Industries Incorporated, 2011 South Town East Boulevard, Mesquite, Texas, 75149-1122, USA.

Paragon Industries started as a family business in 1948. It's now the world's leading manufacturer of electric kilns and furnaces, and has built over 420,000. The 4,400 square-metre site, in Mesquite, Texas, USA, has over 70 full-time staff. A new 1,700 square-metre warehouse is under construction.

During manufacture, every kiln is checked at every stage by a technician and signed-off before shipping. They're simply but robustly engineered, and you're buying a comprehensive, versatile, safe, low-cost kiln: a kiln with a future.

Paragon kilns conform to the demanding UL 499 standard in the US, and are CE Marked for the EU. Paragon is Greek for Model Of Perfection.

CLASSES AND COURSES

The Kitiki Studio's Classes And Courses.

The Kitiki Studio provides an Art Clay educational programme, as classes, masterclasses, workshops, and Art Clay Level 1 and Level 2 certification. However, as we're in a rural area, I can recommend teachers that might be nearer. If you're interested,mail or call.

SHOPPING

On-Line Shopping At Cherry Heaven.

If the delivery address is within the UK mainland, and the shipping weight is less than 30kg, the prices include UK VAT at 20.0% and door-to-door delivery: there are no other charges, unless it's a low-value order.

If the delivery address is outside the UK mainland or classed as highlands and islands, even if it has a UK postcode, there'll be an additional distance-related delivery charge, so check the shop page or mail or call with your delivery address and shopping list. If the invoice address is not in the EU, you don't pay UK VAT: so the prices will be 20.0% less.

The on-line shop link is below the menu bar near the top-right of the page: you won't have to create an account, register, log on, look up your membership number, remember a password, sign up, join a club, or agree to be emailed.

DISCOUNTS AND RESELLING

Discounts, Trade Prices, And Business Opportunities.

For arts centres, ceramic cafes, colleges, course providers, resellers, schools, studios, universities, and workshops, making multiple or regular orders, there are lower prices for most products. You don't need to set up an account: just mail or call. There isn't a set percentage discount that applies to everything: it depends on quantity and value. Discounts are intended for resellers, or those setting up a classroom, technical facility, or working studio: not individuals buying one product.

COPYRIGHT

The content is Cherry Heaven copyright, 2003-2014. Cherry Heaven is a UK registered business. Any other names used are probably registered trademarks.

The Copyright Act 1988 generally protects the rights of authors, composers, and artists, until 70 years after their death. Nearly every country has agreed to respect international copyright.
The Act says that you cannot copy, redistribute, perform, broadcast, translate, or adapt, original literary, musical, or artistic works, without the owner's permission. So don't copy this design, text, audio, or video.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The Napoleon of Notting Hill is a novel written by G. K. Chesterton in 1904, set in a nearly unchanged London in 1984.

Although the novel is set in the future, it is, in effect, set in an alternative reality of Chesterton's own period, with no advances in technology or changes in the class system or attitudes. It postulates an impersonal government, not described in any detail, but apparently content to operate through a figurehead king, randomly chosen.

The dreary succession of randomly selected Kings of England is broken up when Auberon Quin, who cares for nothing but a good joke, is chosen. To amuse himself, he institutes elaborate costumes for the provosts of the districts of London. All are bored by the King's antics except for one earnest young man who takes the cry for regional pride seriously – Adam Wayne, the eponymous Napoleon of Notting Hill.

While the novel is humorous (one instance has the King sitting on top of an omnibus and speaking to it as to a horse: "Forward, my beauty, my Arab," he said, patting the omnibus encouragingly, "fleetest of all thy bounding tribe"), it is also an adventure story. Chesterton is not afraid to let blood be drawn in his battles, fought with sword and halberd in the London streets between neighboring boroughs; Wayne thinks up some ingenious strategies, and Chesterton does not shrink from the death in combat of some of his characters. Finally, the novel is philosophical, contemplating the value and meaning of man's actions and the virtue of respect for one's enemies.

Michael Collins, who led the fight for Irish independence from British Rule, is known to have admired the book.There has been speculation that the setting of the book prompted the date chosen for the setting of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.The novel is also quoted at the start of Neil Gaiman's novel Neverwhere.

Both the novel and Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday are referenced in the 2000 video game Deus Ex

OLD ISLINGTON

I will neither take you abroad, nor lead you astray. Come, then, with me to Islington - not Islington of 1860 but Islington five-and-forty years ago, when the "Angel" tavern was a fine old crumbling inn, with a courtyard and galleries, with pigeon-hole bedrooms and capacious stables; when the "Peacock" was the grand rendezvous of the northern mails, and the scarlet coats of the guards and coachmen made the old king's birthday a gala in goodly Islington.
    At that time Islington as comparatively a suburban village; old " and "Highbury Barn" were landmarks for cockney adventurers; and so, indeed, was "Copenhagen House" where now stands the Cattle Market, and where the water to make tea for the company was dipped from a proximate pond and blackberries were plentiful in the vicinity where now costly edifices, termed villa residences, have been erected, and adorn the neighbourhood by their architectural good taste and beauty. "Canonbury House" was then in existence, and the pond opposite the old tower abounded in gold and silver fish; and just beyond that spot the schoolboys, now grown old men like myself, went to bathe in that part of the New River called the "Sisters", where, at the present time, terraces of well-built houses with grassy slopes grace the river bank.
    The oldest public-house in the vicinage of London bowed its venerable head in the Lower Road; and ancient chronicles tell us that in that hostelry Izaak Walton, the poet and angler, had often rested and related his sport to the assembled guests. A modern gin-shop now desecrates that hallowed spot; and the native antiquary sheds a tear as he passes over old recollections, and, if not a very pious man, is apt to give way to an anti-benediction against modern Vandalism.
history.ac.uk/sites/default/files/publications/pubid-340/images/fig92.gif (for such was the sign of the antiquated public-house reverted to) in Colebroke Row, dwelt that accomplished, though simple essayist, Charles Lamb. There, in the cottage now dedicated to the manufacture of double soda-water by one Webb, a man of great, though effervescent popularity, did the author of "Elia" ponder obver his graphic pen, and give to the world those masterly essays and criticisms which, though he has long since departed from amongst us, still live to embelish our literature, instruct our youth, and adorn our libraries.
    Just be stood Rhodes's cow-house, wherefrom I have many a good time got up early and fetched milk to boil for my breakfast, that same milk, with bread, being a great treat to me in my boyhood's days, which, by the by, I cannot say were entirely passed in Islington, but in the main entry to that ancient village, St. John's Street or Islington Road, which happens - as, indeed, also does the tavern so well known as the "Angel" of Islington - to be in the parish of Clerkenwell. Islington, however, was the Brighton, Margate, and Ramsgate of the boys of the adjoining localities; and every half-holiday country lodgings were taken and occupied in the trees and fields near to the bathing-quarters of the "Sisters", High-bank, the Sluice House and Hornsey Wood.

london impressionism

Lesser Ury (1861-1931) was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker, generally considered to be an Impressionist artist.  Raised in Berlin, Ury left school to pursue a trade after the death of his father, a baker. 

 However he soon traveled to Düsseldorf to study painting.  After his studies, Ury spent time traveling and stayed in Paris and Brussels for extended periods of time.  He returned to Berlin in 1887 and had his first exhibition.  He received a hostile reaction, but received a medal due to the influence of Adolph Menzel, the foremost German artist of the time.  In both Berlin and Munich, Ury was a member of the Secessionist movements to promote modern art and the avant-garde.  Much of Ury's work resembles Impressionism quite clearly.  

He frequently painted
landscapes and interior scenes.  Some of his landscapes have a more modernist appearance, showing the influence of avant-garde art movements in Germany.  At times he tended toward even greater abstraction, to beautiful and dizzying effect.  Paintings of cafes at night are among his best known works, as are rainy urban scenes.  Evening Rain clearly falls into the latter category, and it is a very interesting example of the genre.  This painting shows the street soaked in a downpour, blurring the forms of the scene.  People generally are indistinct shapes, especially in the background.  One of the most interesting elements of the piece is the use of reflections on the wet street.  For both the horses' legs and the people's, the reflections serve to lengthen their legs and make them appear strangely distorted.  By doubling their limbs this way, Ury doubled the vertical raindrops by elongating the people and horses.  The color here is masterfully utilized; the scene is mostly neutral tones, with a dark grey bridge, a greenish-grey street, and brown and black figures.  However the woman at the foreground is a startlingly prominent exception.  Her blue dress focuses the entire painting and immediately draws the eye.  She is an oasis of color on this shabby street.

Lesser Ury, who was born in 1861, in the town of Birnbaum, in the Province of Posen, when it was still part of Germany, had a long struggle with poverty before he won recognition, and even after he had become famous he was a poor man. His father, a small trader in Birnbaum, died while Lesser Ury was a boy, leaving him and his mother totally unprovided for. At first Lesser Ury was put by his mother into a shop, with the intention of becoming a trader, but he was a bad businessman and he wanted to become a painter. He went to Duesseldorf, Munich, Berlin and Paris, and despite much material hardship he slowly won recognition. Nevertheless, though a success from the artistic and the press point of view, his first exhibition held in 1889 brought him very little money. It was soon after, however, that he won the Michael Beer prize of the Berlin Academy of Art, which sent him to Italy. His first retrospective exhibition held in Berlin in 1916 established his fame as one of the great artists of Germany. Like Liebermann, an impressionist, his works are among the earliest and best examples of impressionism in Germany. The National Gallery in Berlin acquired three of his paintings in 1923, and the number has been added to since. His colour has been described as masterly and he has been called the most important pastel artist of the twentieth century.

HIS JEWISH AND BIBLICAL SUBJECTS

He made his name chiefly by his paintings of city life and scenes, and in this regard he was called the discoverer of Berlin. He devoted himself, one of his admirers, Dr. Israel Auerbach has written, to painting the animation in the streets, the people rushing backwards and forwards, the endlessness of the lines of trees and houses, the streetcars, the wheels moving, the sparkle of the cafes, the shining pearl chains formed by the electric are lamps, the mirror-like rainy streets, the dimness of night lights and shadows, the entire wild, shrill and yet rythmic swing of the life of the big city, pounding, breathing and rotating in his pictures.

At the same time, he was devoted also to his Judaism, and he was constantly painting pictures of Jewish life and Biblical themes. Lesser Ury is a Jewish artist, Dr. Auerbach wrote, not only because he sometimes paints Jewish types, scenes, legends, but also because he is a great artist in whom Judaism lives. The Judaism in him makes itself known by the fact that we can read him more clearly in his creations of Jewish characters than in anything else. It is no accident that Ury chose Biblical motives to express his innermost thoughts. He is devoted to the Book of Books and to the breath of God that is in it, as well as to the mighty moving throng that live in that breath. He has painted Moses at least half a dozen times: drunk with vision before the shining mountain; in repose, with wise fingers pointing to the Words; in divine scorn, breaking the first tablets before the sinners surrounding the golden calf; as the outstretched arm of God punishing the corrupt world of Egypt. Again and again Moses, the Bible, and scenes showing the fate of his people appear in Ury’s work. His most famous work perhaps is his triptych “Man”, which represents first a dreaming youth, whose heaven and life are full of music, whose body and soul are filled with expectations and certainty, next a titanic man of granite, erect, lifting the whole burden of humanity to the heaven that calls and again rejects him, and finally a broken old man waiting for the end to come. So he portrays himself – Lesser Ury, the man and the artist.

His “Jerusalem” has become the property of the State Museum in Vienna, Dr. Auerbach went on, and the Temple of the B’nai B’rith House in Berlin is adorned with his “Jacob and Esau”, and his “Rebecca and Eliezer”. But gigantic paintings such as “Adam and Eve”, “The Deluge”, “Man”, even the exalted “Jeremiah”, that should belong to the world, he complained. are still in his studio.

Despite his fame, buyers have not been many, particularly in recent years, with the economic conditions in Germany so extremely difficult. He was once forced, Dr. Auerbach relates, to destroy one of his paintings, “Benjamin”, because it was too big for his poor studio, and he was too poverty-stricken to place it anywhere. He lives, dreams and talks with his pictures, which are his very flesh and blood, he continued, but material poverty often makes him grieve. It is a disgrace for us Jews, his own people, he wrote to allow his pictures to remain in his studio. In the meantime, he concluded, picturing Lesser Ury in the last few years before his death, “a lonely man, embittered, and often in the mood of his “Samson”–“Tamuth Nafshi in Pelishim”, sits surrounded by his enormous treasure. And on the other hand, the Jewish people, whom he would like to enrich, but who prefer not to recognise his treasure, remain poor”.

monet in london

Claude Monet painted a series of oil paintings of the Palace of Westminster, home of the British Parliament, in the fall of 1899 and the early months of 1900 and 1901 during stays in London.
All of the series' paintings share the same viewpoint from Monet's window or a terrace at St Thomas' Hospital overlooking theThames and the approximate canvas size of 81 cm x 92 cm (32 in x 36 3/8 in).
They are however painted during different times of the day and weather circumstances.

By the time of the Houses of Parliament series, Monet had abandoned his earlier practice of completing a painting on the spot in front of the motif. He carried on refining the images back in France, and sent to London for photographs to help in this. This caused some adverse reaction, but Monet's reply was that his means of creating a work was his own business, and it was up to the viewer to judge the final result.