Metal Clay Gives Free Reign to My Creativity - Ghislaine

MCHs April featured metal clay artist is Ghislaine of GS Creations.

Ghislaine has been making bead jewelry for the past eight years. She started with beadweaving and now has ventured into precious metal clay, the new territory!

When did you first become interested in Metal Clay? How long have you been designing jewelry using Metal Clay?
I had read a little about it around three years ago and started working with it exactly one year ago in April! I had always used beads to make my jewelry and came to a point where I felt like I had learned all the stitches and techniques that I needed. I wanted a new challenge but something that I could still use my beads with (If you could see how many beads I have you would understand!).

Would you tell us your creative process?
I usually start out with a rough sketch of what I'd like to do. An idea will pop into my head at any time of day (or night when I'm desperately trying to fall asleep) so I always keep a sketch book with me. Often times though the piece will design itself. By that I mean that it starts out looking like the sketch and as I'm working new ideas start to flow into the piece. As new shapes take form and elements are added or removed the piece takes on a life of its own.

What inspires you?
These days I'm loving working with dichroic glass cabochons and they are a great source of inspiration. You will sometimes catch me sitting at my workbench just starring at my cabs or moving them around. Their shapes, colors, and designs "speak" to me.

What do you enjoy most about working in Metal Clay?
I love the freedom it gives me. You can mold it, you can carve it, you can even use water to shape it. It gives free reign to my creativity. I get great joy from being able to make a whole piece using a metal clay object as a centerpiece and beadweaving the rope.

What is your greatest ambition as a Metal Clay artist?
I would love to one day be able to live off my art. Making jewelry and art pieces has always been a passion but never as much as when I started to work with metal clay.

Ghislaine's creative art pieces can be found here. She's giving away this beautiful Fancy Filigree pendant to a lucky winner! The piece measures approximately 1.3" in height and width. And is adorned by a 3mm clear cubic zirconia.


To win the Fancy Filigree pendant, here are the rules:

Every person is eligible to enter the blog giveaway with up to FOUR (4) entries. How can you get an entry? You can do any of the following and then let us know that by leaving a comment under this feature so we can keep track.

1. Follow our blog = 1 entry
2. Check out featured artist and post favorite piece on the blog = 1 entry
3. Heart featured artist’s shop = 1 entry
4. Follow featured artist on Facebook = 1 entry
5. Make a purchase = 2 entries
6. Refer a friend = 1 entry
7. Tweet about the giveaway using key word metalclayheads = 1 entry
8. Share the Metal Clay Heads blog giveaway link on FB (Go to http://www.facebook.com/MetalClayHeadTeam and click Share) = 1 entry
9. If you voted and commented on our last challenge = 1 entry

The giveaway will run for two weeks. We will announce the winner on May 7th. Good luck!