Enameling

These are the two semi presentable pieces that I’ve made so far in my enameling class. I’ve discovered something about myself….I get extremely indecisive whey I’m overwhelmed. For example, I’m in class and someone hands me a sheet of copper and says make something…I blank out. I can’t decide what to make, what design to go with, and what colors will work. For these two pieces I did some home work. I have some sheet copper laying around and so I cut out the pieces and filed them down. The oak leaf i made two weeks ago. We were still playing with general techniques and experimenting with colors, opaques versus the transparents. Painting versus shifting. Whether or not to create a pattern in the metal and then enamel over it. The blue piece is my first attempt at Cloisonne. It is not finished, still needs another layer or two of enamel, and then needs to be sanded/grinded smooth. I still like it though.
Here are the basics as I’ve learned them from this extremely informal class. We did not learn the technical side of any of this, although I wish we had. First of all you can only enamel on fine silver (not sterling) or copper. Again she didn’t go into why, just said it had to do with the chemistry. I think it may have to do with other metals like sterling are a combination of metals and the heating of these mixed metals continuously could cause problems. Copper and fine silver are both pure metals. Fine silver is very expensive right now, last I heard was $15/ounce, so we use copper. The first step is to cut out the piece you want, and file the edges smooth.
Enamels are very fine powdered glass. You can make your own enamels by grinding colored glass with a mortar and pestle, but I think that would take forever. Enamels come in every color imaginable and you can get them in opaque or transparent. There might be more kinds available, but that’s all we have in class. A liquid called clear fire or holdfast is painted onto the piece and enamel is sifted or sprinkled or painted onto the copper. You place this in a red hot (1500? degree) kiln for about a minute, let cool. Then add another layer. Enamels are all about layering and how the colors layer on top of each other. They don’t blend like paints will, it’s more like taking a yellow piece of glass and a blue piece of glass and looking thru them together…that’s the green effect you can get. That only works with transparents, and I’m having a hard time getting them to work well for me. We’ve been told if you do a larger piece then the the metal can begin to warp, so some people doom the copper slightly before they begin enameling, my pieces aren’t big enough for me to worry.
Cloisonne is the second part of our class. It is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Cloisonne is enamel around wires that form an image. I had my copper piece and put a layer of clear enamel down, this is important b/c we used fine silver wires. Again there’s something in the chemistry with two different metals touching that doesn’t work at high temperatures. The wires were attached by dipping them into clear fire and then into enamel and then arranging them on the copper piece. Fire this in the kiln and your wires are in place! That’s the trick I didn’t understand until I got to class. If you mix the clear fire with a the enamels you can kinda paint the enamels in place. Enamel doesn’t dissolve, so you still have little grains that you can push around into tiny places or clump up to fill large areas. Apparently, you’re supposed to layer enough glass to be even with the wire or be just above it. Then you’re supposed to grind down anything in uneven spots so the piece is smooth. I still need another layer on my blue piece.
A little description of the pieces…the Oak leaf uses opaque green as a base layer. I attempted to paint opaque orange and gold for the veins. It looked very much like a five year olds version of a leaf. My teacher suggest a layer of transparent pink, she said it would add texture to make it look more organic. I tried and LOVED how it looked. I threw on a counter enamel (a layer of enamel on the back) and when this was in the kiln the enamels began to drip and formed an air bubble. You can see the dimple in it from the bubble. I put another layer of transparent pink on and went too think so it became blurry in some parts of the piece. I still like it a lot though, not sure what I’ll do with it yet. The blue piece is the shape of another leaf, but I wanted to try different colors. The blue is transparent, but you can’t tell b/c there are three heavy layers of enamel on it. There is also transparent purple next to the silver wires. The teacher has again suggested a light application of a transparent, but I don’t think I want to add the texture. There is some there b/c the glass is transparent. I need to come up with another idea for cloisonne, something where I actually enamel inside the wires and not just around.

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