This past weekend was an enameling ThumBOWLina bowl weekend - with one pendant. The above picture is me heating up the copper so mom can hammer them into shape. I actually use my lampworking torch to heat up the copper (my goal, one day, is have a torch for jewelry).
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| Mom hammering - you can see it on our EB Facebook page. |
When mom is hammering the bowls - she likes to feel them in her hands and see how they feel. She was also trying to make each bowl unique - there were 12 bowls she hammered and I enameled.
The pile of shaped bowls and the pendant. I would like to participate in the Art Elements Monthly Challenge - White, so mom found a pendant we both liked and sawed it out. We both can't wait to see how it turns out for the challenge.
Before I put enamel on the pieces, mom and I clean them. Right now mom is cleaning the bowls for me. It was pretty cold in the garage and the sink only has cold water. Our goal for next year is to sell enough pieces that we can hire a plumber to come in and put hot water in the sink. This past Sunday I actually had the garage up to almost 50 degrees, but the water is still freezing. And we clean the pieces each time before enamel is put on - so the hands do get a little cold.
These are the pieces with the powered enamel on them before they are fired in the kiln. I do multiple layers and multiple colors on each of the pieces.
I also pulled out the frit to play with. I always forget how much frit I have until I start pulling the bottles out. That is not even half of my frit collection. I love color!
The final bowls. I just took a quick picture to share. I will take individual photos and share later. All of these will be gifts to friends and my Zumba instructors.
I will share the pendant on the challenge revel date.
they are fantastic and it's great to see enamelling. It's something I've dabbled with and want to do more of. I have a kiln that I haven't tried yet - do you need a door with window in it or can it be done in a standard kiln? I actually thought you were going to torch fire them as we use little enamelling stands like that to torch-fire on in my silversmithing class. I was going to ask you if the kitchen cabinets were fire-proof!! Just me being dumb.
ReplyDeleteHi Wendy - sorry for some reason I am not being notified of comments (need to check on that). I don't have a window in our door, of our kiln. I use a Paragon kiln and the temp I get up to is 1460 and I place the piece in the kiln for 2 minutes. I have tried to torch fire beads, but I melt more beads than I actually create. That is something I really want to take a class on - torch firing. We only use the cabinets to put the pieces on that are ready to go in the kiln. When I take the pieces out I place them on bricks to cool down. That is why I always have an assembly line going - take a piece out, put another piece in while everything is cooling down.
DeleteI do have some pictures and videos of the process on our Facebook page: EB Bead and Metal Works, LLC - if you would like to check it out.