Filed under: enamel, experimental, jewelry by ramune

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.

Filed under: artomatic, enamel, exhibit, jewelry, photography by ramune

Starting tomorrow night I will be one of 1,000+ exhibitors in Artomatic 2009! Above is a sneak peak of what you will see in my exhibit. These postcards will be available for your taking and all framed items on my wall will be available for sale (wink wink nudge nudge).

I will be by my exhibit (on floor number 4) this Friday, May 29th from 6pm-9pm and Sunday, May 31st from 6pm-8pm. There will be home-baked treats (while supplies last), so please drop by and say hello. Artomatic is a nine floor smorgasbord and impossible to see completely in one day, so be sure to make some time for the fourth floor. I believe there will be floor plans, but so you know, my exhibit is in the northwest corner facing the Capitol building. I am really looking forward to opening night and hope to see you there!

Here is some basic information on Artomatic. For more, please visit artomatic.org.

55 M Street, SE
Washington, DC 2000
Located directly above the Green Line Navy Yard Metro Stop, West Entrance

May 29-July 5, 2009
Fri-Sat: 12pm-1am
Sun, Wed, Thu: 12pm-10pm

Filed under: design, jewelry, process by ramune

It hit me this morning that I only have three more enamels classes left for the Winter session. No worries though . . . our class was postponed so many times that the Spring session starts only two weeks after my last class . . . phew! How I long for a large studio in a barn in the middle of nowhere with a teleporter to a nice city loft. I can dream, can’t I?

I will work on those plans (and you work on developing that teleporter for me), but in the meantime here I am preparing some copper discs to be etched. I need to get better at focusing when I can’t actually look at the viewfinder.

Filed under: jewelry, process by ramune

Last Monday I was all excited to start my enamels class and wanted to make sure I didn’t waste a minute of potential kiln time, so I did some prep work. I got out my dwindling supply of ferric chloride and put in a few copper pieces to etch. I used asphaltum (black) on some and DecoColor paint marker (red) on others so I could try both methods and see the results on the same design. The asphaltum holds up better in the acid, but needs to be painted on and does not lend itself to detailed design (or maybe I just need to find better brushes). The DecoColor paint marker is far easier to draw with, but breaks down a lot faster. I think this was the last run for the ferric chloride (or close to it) as it took me six hours to etch this deep when it usually only takes around three.

Unfortunately I did all that prep work and then my class was canceled (for the third week in a row) due to the fact that the DC area can’t handle an inch of snow. The coffee shop I went to on Tuesday closed at 4:30 “due to weather” as well. DC needs to learn how to deal with snow, it’s not like we’ve never had it before. At least today I finally have my first class.

Filed under: enamel, jewelry by ramune

Cloisonné Fig Pendant on a fig branch

I meant to post this last week but with Thanksgiving and all it was pushed back. Last week was my last Enamels class and I managed to finish my fig cloisonné pendant as well as a few other pieces. This is my second cloisonné and I am pretty happy with it, but wish a few things had worked differently. For one, reds are hard to work with and it is difficult to get them to look vibrant. The red inside the fig is a little bit duller than I would have liked, but that’s ok.

Instead of putting the shot in early on in the process, like I did in my last cloisonné piece, I put them in at the very end during the last firing so they would stick out more and stay round.

On the trivet waiting to go in the kiln for the last time

Closeup of the cloisonné fig pendant on a fig branch

Filed under: enamel, jewelry by ramune

Champlevé Pendant on Jade

Since I only have two more weeks of my enamels class I figured it would probably be a good idea to post one of my pieces to the ol’ blog. I am in the middle of working on a bundle of pieces and hope to finish them all in the next two weeks but that might be a bit too ambitious. So either I will take the class again in January (if I’m still in the DC area) or I will have to set up a studio or find another class when I move (the aim is to find a job/move in January but we’ll see).

This piece uses a technique called Champlevé, which involves etching the copper and then filling in the etched spaces with the enamel. It’s similar to Cloisonné, however in Cloisonné you form metal wire to create the “walls” instead of etching the metal.

P.S. During this set of 9 week classes I have vowed not to use my favorite color, Old Silver. It has been my standby but we don’t have much left in class and apparently they have stopped making it, so I am trying to pull away from my dependency. This piece uses a color called Pigeon Gray instead and it might be my new Old Silver.

Filed under: enamel, favorites, jewelry by ramune

After four weeks I am finally done with my first cloisonné piece! Sweet peas! This past week was a bit stressful and lead to some language that I will not repeat here. At the beginning of my class I finished up stoning and then put it in the kiln. As I was taking it out of the kiln (for what was supposed to the be the final time) something was caught and I mistakenly slammed my piece into the top of the kiln (insert numerous expletives here). I managed to get it out but part of the enamel was sticking to the trivet (it looked sort of like pulled taffy, but it was glass) and I had this white fiber all over the top part of the piece. Needless to say I was not happy but luckily I had another two hours in which I was able to fix it up and this is the result. I am pretty excited about it and look forward to wearing it. The pendant has a diameter of 2″.

I feel like it should have a title, any ideas???

Cloisonné pendant on my neck

Filed under: enamel, jewelry by ramune

I was hoping to have a finished product this week but the stoning process took longer than I anticipated. Stoning is the process of evening out the enamel and metal so it’s all at one level, a process I am convinced would give anyone arthritis. It will definitely be done next week, which puts it at 9.5-12 hours spent on one piece.

Detail photo of a cloisonné pendant after stoning

Filed under: enamel, jewelry by ramune

This is week two of my Cloisonné project. I added two new colors and am building up the blue. I was hesitant to put the red in but I am getting to like it. I think I should have it finished next week.

Detail photo of adding more colors to a cloisonné pendant

Filed under: enamel, jewelry by ramune

I am taking the enameling on metal class again this summer, however it’s only five weeks long. Since it is so short I am going to focus on one piece using a new technique (to me) called Cloisonné. At first I was not too thrilled with what I had seen done with this technique, but I am going to try and work it into my style and hopefully something interesting will come out of it.

This week I am posting a detailed photo of what I have so far, which is just a light base coat of enamel with the silver wire and shot (silver balls) in place. Next week I will begin laying down the colors. Eventually the silver wire will be (should be) flush with the enamel. I am a little nervous because one woman in my class had a beautiful piece with a lovely transparent amber color base coat and somehow after she put it in the kiln with the wire on it it turned a cloudy muddy yellow color.

Detail photo of first steps in creating a cloisonné pendant