Enameled Bowl and Necklace Pieces

This past Sunday mom and I went to campus to work in the metals studio in the PAO building. We were working there for over 5 hours. It takes about an hour for the small kiln to heat up and about two hours for the large kiln to heat up. While we were waiting for the kilns to heat up, I made my shapes for the necklace and bracelet and mom worked on cutting out circles for her "Bib" necklace.

I have to say that this was the best enameling day that I have had in a long time. Lately, almost all the pieces I enameled I have messed up in some way so that I would have to start over enameling. Of course this would make me mad. I finally found my enameling book, in the junk room, and re-read how to enamel. I followed the instructions and everything started to work. I guess I just need a refresher on how to enamel.

In a previous studio session, mom had cut out and formed an abstract bowl that needed to be enameled. Mom let me choose the colors, but she wanted something that had "fall colors". I mixed up the following opaque colors: orient red, black, jungle green, mocha brown, sunset orange and the following transparent colors: peacock green, and two different browns for enameling the bowl. I am really happy with how the color turned out. I would never in a million years think this was the color that would come from the eight colors I mixed together.

I also enameled 12 abstract leaf shapes for a necklace and bracelet. I still have two more shapes that I need to enamel. I also need to make the glass beads that I want to put in between the leaf shapes. I also need to cut out sterling silver wire to connect the shapes and the glass beads, but at least the enameling portion is done! I really like how the blues turned out. On the back side, which I did not take a photograph of, I really like how the clear creates different colors. The necklace will be reversible if the customer likes the back side color and not the blue on the front side.