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

 

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

 

I will be holding workshops in the studio on the following dates

Enamelling for beginners
Day  -  £65.00
10.30 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.

Saturday 11th August - full
Saturday 8th September - full
Saturday 15th September 2012 - 3 spaces available
Saturday 29th September, 2012
Saturday 20th October 2012
Saturdaty 10th November 2012
Saturday 1st December 2012

Honeycombs Enamel Workshop

Fab day in the studio today, only second time in for 3 weeks as I haven't been well but great workshop with some lovely ladies.  A huge thank you to Linda who came along to give me a hand.
The workshop was for beginners and we used copper blanks to enamel onto.  The ladies made various pendants sifting the enamel colours onto the copper then firing in the kiln at temperatures around 750-800 deg C.  They used enamel threads to decorate and did some wire work, scragfitto and just had fun.

Jenny and Sarah

 Janet and Angela

 Everyone fired their first pieces really well

 Janet and Angela finding sifting the enamels very therapeutic

Sarah receiving a helping hand from Linda

The only thing I forgot to do was take photographs of the finished results but everyone said they enjoyed the day.

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

I could spend all day enamelling, I just love the way the colours emerge when I add small pieces of crushed enamel to a design and then swirl it while it's in the kiln. I made this pendant and liked it so much that I was going to keep it to go with an outfit I had.
I sifted transparent shades of copper brown and light brown onto the copper shape then added and swirled glass pieces while it was still in the kiln and added a small millefiori (means millions of flowers in Italian). The different tones of brown gave a warmth and depth to the pendant and I had no sooner finished it than someone bought it so I didn't get to keep it to go with my outfit after all. This pendant, was created using shades of blue and mauve with small chips of glass being swirled into the design.

These next 3 pieces were made after someone gave me the inspiration of taking a small window of Gustav Klimts artwork then transferring it to my designs. This one had square pieces of copper wire put onto the pendant and I then inlaid them with mauve and white enamel. The background was a dove grey and the rest of the design was painted with gold before firing.

This piece was sifted with orange enamel powder and then I painted a flower and leaf design before firing. I didn't like this one as much as I thought I would as I really enjoyed painting it but the design didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped.

I loved this design with the ivory background and touches of blue, a sort of reddish brown and then gold highlights.

I loved the simple design of this next piece. I had used shades of blue opaque and transparent enamels and the colours had started to burst through giving a lovely depth to the background. A simple blue millefiori just finished it off.

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.