Enamellling

Today I have sad news.

My lovely little Tiff was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach.  It's very rare in rabbits so the vet was unable to give me a prognosis.  There is nothing they can do, she's 8 and surgery would likely kill her and probably wouldn't cure her anyway.  She's on pain meds and I'm watching her carefully for signs that she's suffering when I will have to say goodbye.

For the time being, she seems in good spirits and is still running around, cuddling with Harry, cuddling with me and scoffing her food like someone is going to take it away!

(she's only cowering in the corner as she thinks i'm going to take her out and give her her medicine!)

Today's post is about a workshop that me and lovely mum took back in February!  I'm really behind with my posts... for those that don't know, I don't get a chance to post during the week and what I'm showing you is very rarely what I've just that minute finished.  I have to do photography (if you could call it that!) and post writing at weekends, but I don't get a chance every weekend so I tend to write about 3 weeks' worth of posts in one go and schedule them.

This enamelling class was the day after a Bead Shop workshop where I'd started to feel ill.  By the Sunday, the day of the workshop, I felt pretty bad.  The following day we were supposed to go to the Stitches trade show and couldn't go as I'd come down with a chest infection.  Because of this, I don't think I was as creative as I would usually be and I've completely forgotten the name of the tutor!

The workshop was held where I have my weekly Silversmith class, in a building that belongs to one of the local collages and The Textile Workshop.  We were learning to torch fire enamels.

We started with some copper blanks to which we added glue (to hold it in place temporarily) and the enamel which is glass powder.  

They are then placed on a wire mesh rack and fired with a torch until the enamel melts.  Above you can see the fronts of my pieces.  The one on the left is actually the back as I preferred it to the front.  You have to enamel and fire the back first, then you do the front.  Whilst firing the front, the back changes as it's melting again and you can't be certain what will happen.  In the case of this white/pink one, I love what happened!  It was green on the front as you can see below.

The green one on the left chipped.  I quite like the backs of the other two as well!

I've included two photos of the drop pendents, one on a black background and one on white as I just couldn't get a decent photo.  They shine in the light as they're so glossy.  I love the dimpled effect from the one on the left.  For the life of me I can't remember what I did to it!  The one on the right is cloisonne.

I used thin silver wire to make the circles and then added the enamel.  I really love how this turned out.

Here are the backs.  I can see that the one on the left I did a gradiated effect, I think the one on the right was just blue.

When the tutor found out I was a silversmithing student, she let me loose on the tools.  I cut a disc, domed it and drilled a hole before adding a layer of white and then a layer of blue enamel.  Pretty.

Those of you with a good memory may remember we did enamelling before.  That was at the Manor House Hotel in Devon and, though similar, was kiln fired enamelling.  You can read about it here.

I enjoyed the workshop, I think if I'd been well, I would have loved it and come up with many more ideas.  Enamelling is something I'd like to do at home.  One day I'll have a set up with a kiln and a torch so I can dabble in both!

Manor House enamelling

I'm back again with a post about the enamelling class I took with my lovely mum on our holiday at The Manor House Hotel.  Blogger is telling me I've spelt enamelling wrong, it thinks I'm American.

Enamelling is a technique done on copper blanks. I'm sure you can do it on silver too, but that would be expensive.  It involves enamelling powder (glass?), small chunks of glass, strings of glass and millefiori beads.  I'm sure there is much more you could add, but this is what we had.  

This first picture shows my first piece.  I put it together on the little metal rack and then put it into a kiln for about 3 minutes until it all melted.

Here is how it turned out:

I'm really pleased with it, it's not quite as blurry as this photo suggests!  It has a little hole (at the bottom, the photo is upside-down) so I can make it into a pendant.  I think the middle bit with the white stringers looks like Chinese writing. 

Here is how the back looks after being in the kiln.  A bit of the enamel bled onto the back, I'll have to remove that with my pliers as it'll feel rough against my skin.

I didn't remember to take any more before photos I'm afraid, I tried my best all week to take progress shots, but this was my first class and we'd just driven for 7 and a half hours to get there!  This uses red powder which burns very easily, so I didn't add the millefiori as that takes longer to melt.  This pendant took just one minute to melt, it has burnt around the edges, but I quite like it.  I just added strings in red, orange and yellow.

Of course, when I saw the bunny blank, I had to make a bunny!  Nice and simple in a lazuli blue with a millefiori tail.  I made the diamond shape as a separately pendant but it didn't turn out as nice as I thought it would.  I think it will look good with the bunny if I can find a way to string them together.  I used millefiori and small chunks of glass on that one.  The first version didn't come out great, so I added glue, more powder and some more chunks and I like it better now.

We both really enjoyed enamelling, it's such a creative craft as you literally start with a blank slate.  I'm thinking of saving for a kiln next year and this would be top of my crafts-for-kilns list!

Next up, silk painting.


I'm going to be linking a lot of posts to Something New for 2014 this month, and this is another as I've never done enamelling before.