How to Use Textured Metal | Jewelry Making

Watch more How to Make Jewelry videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/475975-How-to-Cut-Designs-in-Metal-Jewelry-MakingLearn how to use textured metal from jewelry designer Courtney Gray in this Howcast video.Courtney Gray: Welcome to Creative Side Jewelry Academy of Austin, online at creativeside.org. I'm Courtney Gray. I started my school here, Creative Side Jewelry Academy, four years ago. I'm here in Austin, and I'm going to tell you about jewelry making today.Jewelry Making Using Textured MetalToday I'm going to tell you about textured metal and how you can incorporate that into your work. There's a number of ways to get texture on your metal, you can use hammers, you can use a rolling mill with a material that's going to texture that metal. You can actually take fabrics, and press that into your metal, and make it mimic that fabric pattern. Once you add all those elements in, you want to think about maybe layering those textures. A good rule of thumb is three different textures overlapping each other. Here's some examples. This has a very light texture on it, a brass, and then a heavier hammer texture around the edges. Play with these different textures and see what kind of look that you like. Precious metal clay lends itself more to texture as well. You can actually use stamping tools to create texture in thin metal and in precious metal clay. Precious metal clay, there's a ton of different ways to get texture on your piece and really quick, fun ways as well. Hammering is one of the oldest techniques of getting texture, and just using different pressures with the hammer, different types of hammer heads. So, experiment with this. You can actually take texture and pull it into your pieces and creative really beautiful looks in your work.