About Enamelling

Enamelling is essentially the art of fusing layers of specially made glass powders to a metal base. I use copper mostly, silver and gold are other metals suitable for enamelling but, obviously a lot more expensive. There are quite a few techniques and you may have seen cloisonee (pronounced Klwa-zon-ay) which is the one where wires are set into the enamel. My work often involves several of the techniques.

When I make an item, the first stage is to dust a layer of the enamel powder on to a piece of copper using a very fine sieve. This is then placed in a small kiln pre-heated to around 800º C on a support made of stainless steel (known as firing). Once the glass has fused to the copper the piece and its support can be removed from the kiln and allowed to cool. The process is then repeated several times building up layers on both sides of the copper. The final layer is when you can express your creativity. I particularly like to use stencils and also to draw through the powders to expose the base colour. The last firing fuses your design permanently into the surface of the piece.

Now the item can be filed around the edges to remove the blackened edge which is a natural result of heating the copper. This improves the look of the piece. Finally, the enamelled item can be assembled into jewellery or whatever it was intended to be.