A fab day at the regional meeting of the Guild of Enamellers. Maureen Carswell demonstrated torch firing and then we all had a go at doing it ourselves.  I loved it and even though my two pieces weren't brilliant I was pleased with my first attempts at torch firing.  A great day.

Maureen demonstrating torch firing

Adding colour

 Embossing

 My first pieces after adding white enamel and then firing

 Several transparent colours added and then torch fired

Jane torch firing her bowl

Busy Busy Busy

It's been a busy few days at the unit with courses. I had an evening class last week then 6 people on Saturday for the whole day and a couple of people last night. All in all busy busy busy. Here are just a few pics of some of the things I've been working on lately. I've got a few of them for sale on my web site which I'm trying to update to show more of my work http://www.honeycombcrafts.co.uk/

This top picture is a panel I scragfittoed in the style of a McIntosh Rose. It's just very simple but I liked it.

This next one is a pendant I made. I drilled holes along the bottom then enamelled it with black opaque powder. After firing the front and back around 5 times I added some glass pieces then swirled a design while it was still in the kiln. When it was finished I added some swarovski crystals which picked up the colour of the swirls.

Silver Art Clay

What do you get if you mix silver particles, water and a binder - silver art clay. What a wonderful invention and it is fab to work with. You just roll out the clay and mould it to your desired shape, cut it out, dry it, fire it in the kiln, cool it, brush it and wow a piece of silver 99% pure silver.

Rachel and I had a fab day yesterday using the clay as I've introduced courses at the studio. It's only the second one I've done but it really is fab to work with this material.

Ann and Gaynor came and did a course a couple of months ago and they loved every minute of it. Bearing in mind it was their first time working with the clay I think they did pretty good. Here are some pics of their work.

Ann made an owl from the silver clay and she was really pleased at how it turned out.

Ann and Gaynor at work, cleaning the silver after it had come out of the kiln.

Some of the work Ann and Gaynor did.

We used some silver paste and painted it on the back of some leaves and they looked really good with the very fine veins showing up really well.

We enamelled 2 of the pieces but I don't think you can see the colours very well on the photograph.

Hopefully I can introduce it more and more and include it in a mixed media session with the enamelling.

Green Pasture

I enamelled this little wall plaque a few weeks ago. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with it, whether to frame it or put it onto a piece of wood. A lady came into the shop, loved it and bought it to stand on the beams in her kitchen.

Buttons and pendant designs

While I was blogging I thought I'd share a few pics with you. These are some enamelled buttons I made, not the best picture I must say but the buttons looked really nice when I'd finished them.

These pendants are designs I did based on the work of Gustav Klimt. The one on the right wasn't quite finished. I painted this one with enamel overglaze paints after it had a base coat fired onto it a couple of times and then I re fired it several more times to get the colours right.

Element fixed

Well here we are into February already. I got my element fixed in the kiln - it was quite amazing. A chap had been on a course a few months ago and he popped in with his wife and grandson to pick up a few enamels. He's worked with kilns and when I told him about mine was only to happy to lend a hand and put the element in for me. He was a God send as I was wondering how I'd manage to do it, I didn't want to do anymore damage which is probably what I would have done. It's been one of those weeks. Read about it on my daily blog and you'll understand what I mean. I had 5 lovely ladies in this morning making pendants. They were such fun and enjoyed every minute of it. Pics will be coming soon. I've gained some shelves off someone that was throwing theirs out, really good condition so I've had a move round and hopefully later in the year will be able to get a good run of work surface. I've only been in the unit 11 months but it's taking shape. It's fairly quiet up at the craft centre and with the snow we've had I think it's been quieter during the week. Hopefully it will pick up when the warmer weather gets here.

Kiln trouble

I had a lovely workshop on Saturday with 3 lovely people, Lynne, Andrew and Val. They were such fun and they made some lovely pieces of jewellery. I took photos on my mobile and must try and work out how to get them straight onto my computer without having to put them onto a disk first.
We got halfway through the course and then almost a catastrophe - the temperature of the kiln suddenly dropped and it just wouldn't heat up again. Thankfully I had another kiln which didn't take long to heat up and we managed to finish the course, albeit a little late. Lynne had to drive all the way back to Huddersfield which must have been tiring for her.
Well it turned out that the element has gone on the kiln. I've ordered another one from my supplier who assures me it is easy to fit (I am not an engineer but how hard can it be - we shall see) and hopefully it will be here in the next couple of day.