At the bench: enamelling
It’s been a very long time since I did any work with enamel – and what I have done was pretty basic! But a while back I picked up a sample set of enamels and have been meaning to try them out. And finally last week I did!
The first step was to wash all of the enamels to remove impurities – which felt like quite a task given I had a set of 12 to clean. This involved repeatedly rinsing each enamel with water until the water was clear and then tipping it out onto its own piece of paper to be left to dry, before finally pouring the powder into a container, along with a slip of paper with a note of the colour scribbled onto it.
After finding and cleaning 12 small scraps of silver, I could finally get to work and start testing the enamels.
I wanted to torch fire them rather than using a kiln, partly because I wanted to see how the results would differ from a usual enamelled finish – torch firing tends to create naturally varied finishes. But of course it also means not needing to run a kiln! It’s also a much more hands-on process which is something I enjoyed.
All up I was pretty happy with my testing – and it was lots of fun! It took a few pieces for me to get a clearer idea of how far to keep the torch from the silver and how long to heat each piece. Plus I had to keep a close eye on the changes happening to the white hot enamel and get a feel for when it was done (and not over-done!).
The finishes aren’t consistent seeing as I was learning as I was working, but there are some interesting ones and I learnt a lot during the process.
As for how I’ll be using enamels in my work … well, who knows! But I hope to include some enamel in my handmade jewellery designs in future.
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