3 months since I last posted, wow, doesn't time fly by.  Here are some of the things I've been doing in recent months.

 

Had a fabulous time on 2 of Ruth Ball's workshops held at the Big Peg in Birmingham.  First one was a workshop on cloisonné.  The piece I chose to do was taken from a picture I had seen on the web of some materials.  I'd been looking for pics of ripples and came across the one in the background and as you can see this is what I based my design on.  Below is the finished piece.

 

Ruth Ball Workshop 

 

 

Design taking shape - cloisonné wires resting on design drawn onto tracing paper and held in place with sticky back plastic.

Stoned back to a matt finish

I loved the effect and this was in the final glossy state before I decided to do a mat finish



I completed these painted samples on the second workshop. 

This was one of Ruth's pieces but she asked me to paint a design onto the surface and then let me keep it.



Work in progress using sunshine enamels.  I was pleased with the end result but couldn't get a good picture.

Studio

Spent a day in the studio making ear-rings.  I love the effect I got using different blues.  I'll finish them off tomorrow

 

Just spent a fantastic weekend at Guild of Enamellers Conference, Queen Ethelburga's College, Thorpe Underwood Estate, York.  We were first there 4 years ago and the whole place is still very impressive.
I'll add some photos over the next few days but here's one of the plaques I made from a screen at the tutorial given by Dorothy Cockerell.

 

The weekend seemed to fly past but we crammed such a lot in.  The day tutorials are wonderful and so inspiring.  The retiring Chair always gives a theme for the following year and this time it is 'Communication'.  I have so many ideas whizzing round in my head that I can't wait to get to the studio to try them out.

 

The highlight of the weekend for me was being awarded Associate Craftsman of the Guild of Enamellers.  We have to put 6 pieces of enamelling up for selection and 3 selectors look at your work and judge how well you have enamelled the pieces.  There were 4 of us who put in for selection and we all gained Associate leve.  Needless to say we were delighted.  I do have some pics on my 'facebook' page  if you want to pop over and take a look but I will be posting some here on my blog.

 

 

I can't believe it's that long since I blogged, times passes so quickly.  I have had very few days at the studio compared to last year.  Workshops had to be cancelled due to floods, snow and no lights but thankfully I survived.  Here are some pics of recent work.  I've also been getting new boxes which I love.

 

Beginners workshop at the studio today with Felicity, Jane and Ursula.  Huge thank you again to Linda who came along to help out.

Felicity filing her copper to remove a burr, Jane wet packing her design

Linda explaining capiliary action to Felicity after wet laying enamel onto her design

Ursula seeing if the wires fit onto her design

Jane coiling wire ready to go onto her design

Felicity sifting flux onto the front of her piece of copper

Linda looking on as Jane is about to take out her piece of enamel

Linda giving a helping hand, it looks hot

Ursula steadying her hand to put her piece of copper in the kiln

Using carborundum stone to clean the copper design

The final result - finished pendants
Everyone did brilliantly

 

Mam and Me Enamelled

Had a great day in Shrewsbury today at the Enamel Guild. Pat Johnson was doing a riso screen workshop. We saw several of the screen print enamels Pat had made and she showed us how she achieved some of the results. We were then taken through how to make the screens and as we had been asked to bring some pictures that we would like as a screen it was up to us to make our enamelled piece. I had a lovely pic of mam and me when I was up visiting her a couple of years ago so I thought I would give it a try. Unfortunately the photo was quite dark but this is what I achieved and I love it.
I fired a black to the back of the copper and then fired two layers of dove grey to the front. The background was then enamelled with shades of dove grey, lavender and mid blue and then a spring green was added to give a constrast. This was fired again and when cool I sifted a black through the screen to capture our image. The result was better than I expected and I'll certainly be trying out more screens to see what I come up with.

Enamelled buttons

I don't know how many times I say 'doesn't time fly' because I just seem to go months without writing anything for my blog; but here I am again several months down the line and I've finally managed to get on to write something.

I've been quite busy lately with workshops and have been enamelling some buttons with different designs. I listed some of them on Folksy and my sheep ones sold at the beginning of the week so I was really thrilled. I do enjoy making them and I guess the weekend might just see me doing some more. I hand paint them so they are never identical.

This second set that I did had a scragfitto design and I wrote the word button on one of them.

The photos of the buttons are not the best but I do like these blue ones that I did. Infact they were some of the first buttons I made.

And here's just some pics of other buttons I've made. As I said, the photographs are not very good but it gives you an idea of what you can do with a piece of copper and enamel powders.

All things Silver

It was Silver Clay jewellery making day at the studio yesterday. Linda and Shelagh make beautiful silver jewellery but had never used Silver Art Clay before so booked on a day's course.
Linda had been talking about the course to someone at a china painting exhibition she went to and Mary turned up and decided to stay for the day too.

We started the day making a pendant and rolled out the clay. We then used sweet cutters to make a shape and added decoration.

Linda made a teardrop shape and added small rolled balls of clay to her design.

Shelagh can be seen putting the finishing touches to her pendant, before firing it. She had cut out a triangle and added thin strips of clay as decoration.

Mary was hard at work on a similar design to Linda's pendant. She had cut out her shape and added small balls of clay to finish it off.

We then went on to use silver clay paste and painted it over leaves several times, this shows all the small tiny veins in the silver when it is fired.

I demonstrated making a ring and Mary chose to do this project after lunch while Shelagh made earrings to match her pendant and Linda did another beautiful pendant by making a triangle then folding the sides onto each other which made a cone type shape.

It was Linda's birthday and her husband had made a rather yummy cake which she brought along and then I totally embarrased her by getting everyone singing 'Happy Birthday' - sorry Linda but I do work in a school and it is sung to everyone in the dinner hall, no matter how old you are - secret is ... don't let on it's your birthday when I'm around.

We finished the day by enamelling a piece of copper and then laying some very fine pieces of silver art clay on top and firing into the enamel. We nearly had a disaster as a piece came off Shelagh's but she moved it around, refired it and it looked really good.

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and I hope the girls did too.

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.