Enamelling from the Esk Valley

Today I have been busy helping to hang the exhibition 'Enamelling from the Esk Valley' in the Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby.  This is a joint exhibition of work by Harry Nicholson, Margaret Hopley and myself.  We are all members of the Guild of Enamellers.  All the work is for sale (so fingers crossed we sell some).

 These pieces (above and below) are all works by Harry Nicholson

 These (above and below) are my work

 And these (again, above and below) are some of the pieces by Margaret Hopley

The enameller Ruth Ball has kindly supplied and allowed us to use information panels that she has designed, explaining something about the process.  As you can see this is a fairly large gallery space and the two preceding exhibitions have been of larger scale work, so it was a bit daunting putting this together but I am thrilled with the results.  Thanks to Margaret, Harry, Helen (Gallery Curator), Ruth and everyone else who has helped and encouraged us.

Preparing for an exhibition

I am now in the process of preparing for an exhibition of enamels due to open on the 1st October at the Pannett Art Gallery, Pannett Park, Whitby.  I will be exhibiting enamel panels alongside Margaret Hopley and Harry Nicholson, both also members of the Guild of Enamellers.

I am quite enjoying reviewing some of my older pieces of work as well as creating some new work at a slightly larger scale than anything I have done in recent years.  

These are three of the older pieces and are all enamel on copper and inspired by my local landscape.

This one is fresh from the kiln, so supported on fire bricks and still probably cooling at the point when I took the photograph.  It is enamel on steel, a medium new to me and I have been enjoying exploring the reaction of combining leaded and unleaded enamels.  It is 25cm square and slightly brighter colours than it looks in this photograph, taken quite late this evening after a long day of working at the kiln.

Art clay certification projects

At the recent conference of the Art Clay Guild a selection of new projects for the certification programme in the UK were launched.  All of the projects were on display and had been made by a few of the committee and other  'willing volunteers'.  I had a preview of these projects during my trip to Japan earlier in the year.  This means that there is now a wider range of projects available to students who wish to take the certification programme, although due to the varying sizes of the finished items these are likely to vary considerably in costs.  I am happy to be able to offer a bit more variety although will not be teaching any of the projects I have not actually made myself.  Here are some of my samples so far......

Teaching Enamelling at the Art Clay UK Guild conference

On the Saturday of the conference my good friend Joy Funnell and I joined forces to teach an enamelling class.  We combined the 'Enamelled Accents' technique developed by Joy with my 'Paper textures' technique.  We had a group of 12 enthusiastic students and (unfortunately) we were so busy that I completely forgot to take any photographs during the class.

On the Sunday morning there was a display of work made during conference but not all of the group were present so here is a small selection.  I hope everyone was as happy with their work as I was to see the results.

Domed resin workshop

My second day at the Art Clay World UK Guild conference was spent in a fabulous class,again taught by Ryota Mitsuhashi.  Under his careful guidance we constructed a frame of syringe type surrounded by a ribbon of clay.  After firing he showed us how to construct UV resin in 3D, removing the supporting compound after the resin had been set.   We could then add more colours to the back of the resin to give the piece greater depth of colour.

Here are all of the pieces made by the group.

I really love my pendant and wore it for the rest of the conference.

Thursday's class

I have just spent a few days at the Art Clay UK Guild Conference.  It has been lovely to catch up with old friends and to make a few new ones.  The best part was of course another opportunity to learn from Ryota Mitsuhashi with the aid of Daisuke Minagawa, both from the Aida Corporation in Japan.  On Thursday we were taught techniques for making texture using cuttlefish bone and applying a layer of copper to the surface of silver.

This picture shows the work of the whole class.  I am really looking forward to practising this so that I can teach the technique myself in the future.

Working but not posting

I have been busy in the studio, working on enamel test samples ready for the Art Clay UK Guild conference in York.  I will be teaching a class next Saturday together with my good friend Joy Funnell so have been spending days testing enamels, making notes, preparing handouts, making lists of tools and equipment to take.

The conference starts on Thursday and I am looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones, learning new techniques and sharing ideas.

Tomorrow I will hopefully finish enamelling a couple of pieces for the themed competitions, not like me to be working on this right up to the deadline though!