While in my enamels class this past session, I decided to do something a little different from my usual cloisonné and etched pieces. I give you my spinning blood orange pendant which is a combination of copper, silver foil, transparent and opaque enamels. To see it in action, click the brief video above.
Deru – Peanut Butter & Patience
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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was recently commissioned to make two cloisonné pieces as Christmas gifts. This is the second one which was inspired by this pendant for my cousin, but made larger and given a filigree look to it. That’s it for cloisonné in 2011.
Balam Acab – See Birds (Moon)
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Earlier this autumn I was asked to create two cloisonné pieces as Christmas gifts. Here is the first, which is also my first cloisonné brooch. Below is a photo of the piece right after it came out of the kiln, when the colors were yellower. I might have to find a way to replicate those colors because I always like the transparent colors best when they are just out of the kiln.
Anika – No One’s There
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Anika – Officer Officer
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This weekend I am at Moogfest in Asheville, NC and although I have been slacking on the updates I could not miss the blog’s four year anniversary. Sadly I wasn’t able to catch up to what should be post #209 (eep!) but I do have ambitious hopes of catching up at some point. There are a number of bands I am excited to see this weekend and thought I’d share this one because she is new to me and her eerie voice suits the Halloween weekend quite well . . . have a listen to Anika.
It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it’s been two years since I etched this piece along with three other copper discs. It has been sitting in my toolbox all this time waiting for me to do something with it and I finally decided to make it a brooch.
The Drums – Money
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Last weekend I was in Michigan honoring my maid of honor duties at my cousin’s wedding. It was a gorgeous wedding where all of the stars aligned at the last minute. The weather was perfect (after pouring rain the day before), the food was delicious and the DJ was by far the best wedding DJ I have ever seen. The dance floor was packed from the first song to the end of the night and people kept asking for more.
Backtrack a few months ago to when I signed up for enamels class after almost a year hiatus. When my cousin asked me to be her maid of honor, I knew I wanted to make her a cloisonné pendant as a gift. I am really happy with how it turned out and might have to make a similar one for myself. Here are some photos of the stages. I didn’t go into quite as much detail with the process here as I did with this commissioned piece, but you get the point.
Big Lazy – Just Plain Scared
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After spending seven straight hours in the studio last Tuesday night, I was able to finish the art nouveau inspired cloisonné pendant! I am pretty excited that 1. nothing horrible went wrong in those seven hours (trying to stay calm and not rushing helped) and 2. I am really happy with the piece . . . so much so that I don’t really want to sell it.
To see the previous posts showing the original sketches and the first steps, check these links:
105 . . . Two Years and a Commission
107 . . . Cloisonné Commission II
Below I have compiled some photos of the process. I didn’t take photos of every single step because that would be incredibly boring (since it involves building up thin layer after thin layer after thin layer . . .), but I tried to show a variety of steps.
1. Put the thinner inside wires in place. These were a challenge and took up a good bit of time.
2. First layers of yellow and green (post firing)
3. Adding some gray to the edges (pre firing)
4. In the kiln.
(Side note: The previous week I had aluminum on the trivet in the kiln and managed to push it so it touched those red hot 1500 degree coils and I got a serious zap through my entire body. Lesson learned.)
5. I love the way enamels look right when they come out of the kiln, too bad they don’t stay that way. (post firing)
6. I made little paper patterns to protect my yellow areas from the gray enamel (pre firing)
7. After removing the paper patterns (pre firing)
8. Added in the pink/yellow for the flower. At this point I liked my colors as they were. (post firing)
9. Once I got the coloring I wanted (8), I filled in the empty spaces with N4, a clear enamel (pre firing)
10. After putting on enough N4 to build up the enamel to the top of the wires, I stoned the hell out of this piece. Here it is ready to go in for it’s last firing (pre firing)
My messy space
Deastro – Biophelia
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Hello from yet another gorgeous almost summer-like day in November. First off, this week’s song comes to you from Deastro, one of my absolute favorite musicians of 2009. I was hooked ever since I heard this song. This past Thursday I had the pleasure of seeing him open for Max Tundra (he is a character, well worth seeing live) at a rather small show at DC9. He and his band mate have only been playing together for three weeks in their current setup (which he amusingly would remind us whenever there were technical issues), while he puts together a larger band. Check it out.
As promised, here are some photos of my progress on the commissioned piece I am working on at the moment. Things have been moving a little slower than expected but I am learning a lot in the process. For example, don’t polish up your fine silver with a brass wheel. The brass can transfer to the silver and then completely mess up the enamel when you fire it (gets cloudy and splotchy). I’m glad I learned this after “ruining” two pieces of silver and nearly ruining a third. Oy. I am not as far as I would like to be considering this Tuesday is my last class for the season (I need a kiln and studio of my own already), but I am hopeful that I can finish in time (showing up to class 3.5 hours early should help). This past week I managed to get my main wires on, so at least that part is done. Hopefully everything else will fit into place nicely. Here are some photos of the process so far.
The Flux 2020 firing was finally successful! No cloudiness or splotchiness!
You always have to enamel the back of any piece, otherwise it is more likely to crack.
Bending my wires to mimic the shapes in my design was a finicky process. It was trickier than I had expected and I had to adjust the shapes a wee bit to fit the domed silver disc and make room for thin wires that will be inside the piece on the right.
The Shins – Sea Legs
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Well friendlings, it’s been two years and I’m still here . . . plugging away at a project a week, or something like that. Thank you to those who have dropped by and commented or silently perused through my projects. Thanks also to those who were patient and collaborated with me, I would like to do more projects with friends in year three. This might be a good time to mention that on the right side of the page you can send me suggestions for new projects, since I like a challenge and also run out of ideas. Back to this week’s project . . .
A while ago, a friend of mine (who shall remain nameless for the time being) asked me if he could commission a cloisonné pendant for his significant other. He wanted something that was Art Nouveau inspired and that included vines and floral elements. These are the four sketches I came up with that were both Art Nouveau inspired and true to my style. In other words, not only will he and the recipient hopefully like them, but I will too and it’s always nice to like what you’re making (please don’t ask me to enamel a portrait of you and your cat . . . I won’t do it). The sketches are a bit light, but the colors on the actual piece will be much more vibrant and all the black lines will actually be silver.
During the coming weeks I plan to post my progress on the design he chose. I was hoping to get a decent amount done this week, but because my materials were not what they were advertised to be, I ended up wasting 3.5 hours trying to figure out what was wrong and eventually had to admit defeat. Now I have ordered new silver (from a different and more trusted vendor) and hope that things go smoothly from here on out . . .
Song of the Week: Benoît Pioulard – Loupe
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I just realized that my two year anniversary is coming up in two weeks and well, that means I should be at around project 103 by now. Oops. Where did those missing 13 go? Spooky. Since I have two weeks to catch up, I am going to post a project every day until October 31st. I am not promising any Michelangelo here, and my commentary might be lacking, but I will do it . . . dammit.
In the meantime, here is something I am very excited about . . . PNP paper! I have been taking the same enamels class for two years now and (for the most part) do my own thing. Occasionally I ask my teacher for help/advice, but there hasn’t been much new in the way of techniques learned. A few weeks ago however, she taught the new students how to use PNP transfer paper. With PNP you can photocopy any black/white design to the paper and then transfer that to copper as a resist. We did not have great luck with PNP when we tried it two years ago, but after experimenting with some different techniques, my teacher figured out a way to successfully get the paper to adhere to the copper. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the details transferred and how well the PNP held up in the etch.
Below are some photos of the PNP paper after I had successfully transferred my designs. In some areas the PNP didn’t transfer, but it was pretty easy to touch up using asphaltum. It isn’t a huge deal, but I forgot to reverse the images before printing, so all of my designs are flipped. It bothers me slightly that everything is facing the wrong way. At least I didn’t have any words anywhere.
I was hoping to post some nice photos of my shiny new etched pieces, but I am having a hard time getting the PNP paper off of the copper. I thought I could use mineral spirits, since that’s what I use to take off asphaltum, but I think I need to use paint thinner. Instead of buying a large container for a few uses, I will just wait for class this week.
You may recognize this fish and this guy.
Luckily the touch-ups I had to do with the asphaltum were pretty minor. Here are the copper discs ready to be etched. The piece on the top right is my halftone test. It was also the first one I placed on the PNP, so the pattern is off a bit. My next mission is to find some photos I’ve taken that might work well on copper and transfer those.
Here are my original designs.
The other week I had my last enamels class of the summer (sadness). Because the summer session is so short, I didn’t have any grand plans for anything, but wanted to play around with a wee bit of metal forming and making earrings. I started off this particular pendant wanting it to have a nice gradient of transparent red to gray. Unfortunately while I had it in the kiln, I managed to overfire the red (this is easy to do with reds) and it became a disgusting opaque vomitous brown. I was pretty upset because before this accident the red was really quite lovely and I destroyed it so quickly. After that unfortunate moment I decided I had nothing to lose, so I intentionally continued to overfire it until it was obvious nothing else would change. It was still an object unpleasing to the eye, so I put it under the torch (weeee!). To my pleasant surprise, putting a torch to enamels in the right way gives even the most foul of colors a metallic pearlescent sheen. After playing around with this a bit I decided the piece was finally done and acceptable. This is nothing I would have intentionally created, but sometimes it’s fun to mess up and then play around with the piece until you get something else completely.