Beginning to enamel

Yesterday I had a full studio and a really enjoyable day.  I had another maker working in art clay silver who came to spend the day working out ideas for one of her own projects.  I also had two students from the local college who came over for their second visit.  When they arrived I asked how their projects were going and what they wanted to do.  I was (for some strange reason) surprised when they asked to learn something about enamelling as they both want to include colour in their designs.  I went through the health and safety in some detail before issuing them with dust masks and explaining one technique for applying enamel to metal.   Here are a few of their photographs.  They worked really hard and went from a basic introduction to corrugating copper shim, cleaning, applying and firing their enamel then sifting and scraffito then had a go using one of my riso screens.

They finished their day with a quick try at adding colour using UV resin into bits of soldered copper that they had made on the previous visit.  I am really enjoying their visits as they keep me on my toes, making me think about materials and techniques that will help them to develop their designs.