Enameling - My First Attempt At Home

My Piece from Pam East's class
This post started as a quick review of my experience in enameling.  It is becoming a 2 or 3 part post because I want to share my experiences with those of you who might be interested in learning to enamel as well as sharing some of the techniques that go into the art of enameling.  

After taking Pam East’s Enameling on Copper Clay class, I was eager to try it by myself.  I thought I would rush right home and delve in to the process.  Alas! I had too much going on in my life to go off on yet another tangent. I love the two projects I made in her class. I loved being part of her Kickstarter Program and decided to wait to try enameling on my own until her DVD arrived.

My Piece from Pam East's Class
A couple of weeks ago I started watching the DVD to refresh my memory on the entire process.  It’s a great DVD and I highly recommend it if you are interested in enameling on metal clay.  She has one set for copper clay and one set for silver clay.  Her directions are clear and concise as she takes the project from clay to enamel to finish.  It’s a good review for metal clay techniques too!  
 http://www.metalclaysupply.com/Pam-East-s-Enameling-on-Copper-Clay-2-DVD-Set-p/55707.htm
http://www.metalclaysupply.com/Pam-East-s-Enameling-on-Silver-Clay-2-DVD-Set-p/55708.htm

First you have to make the copper piece to enamel.  Pam uses Art Clay Copper for her enameling and I had enough of it to do the 3 projects in the DVD.  At least I did until a couple of problems popped up in the basic clay pieces.  Project 1 or the Shield earrings were fairly simple. I made the pieces following Pam’s directions and they looked good when I put them in the kiln.  Part of the magic of metal clay is seeing the metal piece come out of the kiln.  When I took them out it was obvious I needed more practice.  The untextured part was too thin and developed a few holes!

The 2nd project in the DVD has 2 layers of clay and Pam stressed the importance of putting enough 'goo' or paste between then.  I did not and the outer edges separated when fired.  I need to really listen when she says something!   I was surprised that my techniques were so rusty.  It was also difficult to keep the side wall cut out straight with no undercuts or slopes. It really does make sense to take care with the greenware phase to prevent unnecessary work at the end.  I remade the pieces.


The first project:  Shield earrings - half textured and half enamel
The clay pieces came out great.    I wanted to wait until I had the three basic clay projects in the DVD were done and enamel all at one time.  I was out of clay!  Darn!  I ordered more and waited.

Future Experiment:  I have several containers of Hadar’s steel clay.  Maybe it would work with enamel.  Why not try?  After asking a couple of enamel related questions on Hadar’s Clay group on Facebook, there was someone who had tried steel with enamel and it worked! 
I proceeded to make the 2nd project on the DVD out of steel instead of copper.  It is in the kiln firing and soon I’ll have a sintered steel medallion and earrings for the experiment.  Turns out the steel experiment will be another blog in the future and the copper is taking more time than I anticipated.

Project 2  and a Future Experiment
My copper clay arrived and I continued with the rest of the copper shield pieces and fired them, pickled and neutralized them and tumbled them. I love the way the tumbler cleans them up.  There are so many tips in the DVD on how and why to pickle, neutralize and tumble.

Ready to enamel.
I made 3 pr of shield earrings and 1 charm
Had to stop playing and go to Cottonwood AZ and while there my friend and I went into a shop called Art Institute Glitter http://www.artglitter.com/ .
What fun!  I found some stamps that I thought would be terrific for enameling projects, saw great things in magic film and sprinkled fairy dust on me in the form of glitter. I must say the micro glitter felt like powder.  Very cool.


Next week I'll tell you about my experience of actually enameling these pieces.  

A Teaser!!




Labels:
Location: Prescott, AZ, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I beg...
Read more

Polymer Clay Conversation

Image
One of the polymer clay groups on FaceBook is 'Polymer Clay Collective'.  This is a group of artists working in polymer clay who share ideas and support each other.  I'm so glad to be a part.  A new feature of this group is the 'Polymer Clay Collective Conversations' where a different member answers a set  of questions.  I get to be first - the trailblazer! I hope you enjoy learning a little more about me and in two weeks I get to learn more about someone else. • Tell us a bit about where you live. I live in Prescott AZ right next to the national forest.   When I look out my studio windows, I often see large black ravens swooping between the pine trees.   Binoculars are always available for close viewing of our smaller forest birds.   You’ve probably read about the forest fires we have had in our area this summer.   The monsoon rains we are having are so welcome. • What do you do when you're not polymer claying? As of 2010, I...
Read more

I'm Back with New Pieces of Art Jewelry

Image
It’s been a while since my last post and while I missed writing them, I hope you also missed sharing my adventures!  Between a road trip to Berkeley and having painful (very painful) shoulder tendonitis my activities really slowed down.  Now I’M BACK!  Ready to explore new techniques and have fun. When I see a good tutorial about something new that catches my fancy, I buy it and eventually the day comes when I just have to try it.  Staci Louise Smith wrote a tutorial “Gold Rush: The Rustic Crackle Technique” for Craft Art Edu.  I loved the pictures of her necklaces and wanted to see what I could do.  If you like the crackle effect  on my pieces or want to try something new, check out her tutorial on   www.CraftArtEdu.com    They have good classes on many subjects. When I started following tutorials, I expected my pieces to look like the instructors.  That just did not happen and it is not the fault of the tutorial or ...
Read more