Enameling Class, Part I

I think I'm going to love enameling. It seems like such a cool craft to know and there's the potential to make some beautiful jewelry.

I've always loved stained glass and cloisonne, and this is a way to bring that to jewelry. We didn't do much today, but I can tell already that I'm going to want to go as far as I can with this skill.

So far, we learned very, very basic enameling skills and made half a test strip. Before creating an enameled piece, you need to test the colors because the powdered glass ends up looking different on silver and copper, and on a white, clear or colored background. One type of blue can end up looking like five different shades. So you make a test strip to see how the shades turn out and then you can pick which combo (glass color, background and metal) you like the best. I actually think the test strips, which are covered with stripes of colors, look pretty! I told this to my teacher and she laughed and agreed.

Today we learned how to coat the back of the test strip. With enameling, you need to cover both sides of the piece. With most pieces, the underside is a neutral color, like brown or black glass, so for test strip, we're doing a brown underside. We practiced sifting the grains onto the copper and then got to heat the piece in the kiln. Damn, is that thing HOT! It's 1500 degrees farenheit, and while I logically knew this, it was another thing to feel the heat -- which felt as if I stuck my hand into Hell -- coming out of it. You use this thing that, appropriately enough, resembles a pitch fork to stick the piece in the oven, and during the five seconds that the door was open, I could feel the heat burning into my hand.

Once I took it out, though (it's so hot, it only takes about a minute to heat), I had glass! The brown enameling isn't the most attractive, but it's smooth and shiny, and it's cool that I made that.

Though most of us are first-time enamelers, there are -- as in my metalsmithing class -- some very skilled artists. The young woman who's the class's assistant developed her own technique for stamping designs onto the enamel. The only guy in the class was enameling a Japanese pattern onto a copper vase that he crafted himself. Pretty amazing stuff.

The summer classes are only six sessions and I then have to wait until September to take the next round. But I'm definitely returning to enameling.

To purchase my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs.

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