Enamelling from the Esk Valley

Today was the final day of our enamelling exhibition at the Pannett Art Gallery in Whitby.  I have really enjoyed seeing visitors peering at the work on a number of occasions as I have passed through the gallery on my way into the museum.  There have been lots of nice comments and it has been encouraging that we have each sold pieces too, especially in the present economic climate.  Tuesday morning we will be taking the work down and packing it, some of it will return to the walls of my studio which have seemed a bit bare for the past six weeks.  Although I haven't done much enamelling over recent weeks I have done bits of sketching and am getting ready to begin working on some new ideas.

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.

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!

Colourful days

I have had a couple of amazing and colourful days this week.  On Tuesday I went over the Bradford to take part in a workshop about using traditional dyes at Cartwright Hall.  It was a workshop linked to the museum's Precious Cargo project and was great fun.  We learned quite a bit about using different plant based dyes to dye a variety of threads including wool, silk and linen.

These are not actually my samples but those of my neighbour, I somehow forgot to photograph my own so will have to take a picture and add it to the post later on.  My samples are now lying on the workbench in my studio drying out.  Our teacher was Debbie The Mulberry Dyer who was very enthusiastic and informative.

Today, Thursday, I have been down in Stoke on Trent with a small group from the Guild of Enamellers looking around the factory of W G Ball Limited.  It was fascinating to learn a little about the making of enamel and to see the two batches of enamel poured out of the crucible.  I have used enamel for years now without really knowing anything about how it is made so this was a fantastic opportunity to add a little more to my knowledge.  Apart from anything else I now know that Budgerigar green is still available.  I was given a small amount of this beautiful colour some years ago and have nearly used it up.  Now I can order myself some more!  Thanks to John Ball and his team for sharing such a fantastic amount of information and for continuing to help and inspire enamellers at all levels.

Enamelling again

When I first started this blog I thought the main focus of my work was enamelling.  Over the past year, (ironically while I have been Chair of the Guild of Enamellers) I hardly seem to have done any enamelling at all.  I have recently done some testing and made samples ready for the Introduction to Enamelling workshop at the Flame Off 2010 at Towcester Racecourse.  Today I enamelled a piece I have been working on sporadically for a couple of weeks.  Having finished it I am not sure I like it.  It does look better on the finger and the oxidisation has produced more variety and subtlety of colours than the photograph shows.  I used textures embossed into watercolour paper to make the background textures on the art clay silver.  Added fine silver wires and tiny balls using overlay silver paste, soldered the two shells to the sterling ring band, enamelled it and then riveted the dyed pearls into place.

More lovely vivid work

These pieces are by my good friend Margaret Hopley. They are currently being exhibited at the North York Moors National Park Office, Moors Centre, Danby, North Yorkshire. The exhibition runs until 5th October. As you can see she works in a wide variety of media. These images are a leaded glass and a mosaic panel, part of a large framed felt panel and a panel in enamel on copper. What beautiful vivid colours they are.

Exhibition at the North Yorkshire Moors Centre, Danby

My friend Margaret Hopley and I are exhibiting (and hopefully selling) work at the North Yorkshire Moors Centre, Danby until the 4th October. Today was our first day and it took us until around 2pm just to set up.

It does look lovely now it is all set up though, I hope you agree?

I am showing some enamel panels and a selection of pieces of jewellery and Margaret has enamel panels, felt, stained glass and mosaics. The pictures below are some of Margaret's and you can see just how much she loves colour.

Enamelling

I seem to have had a really busy couple of weeks, which must be a good thing but haven't really had much time for reflection. Monday I ran a class introducing a couple of students to the medium of enamel on art clay silver and here are the results. I think these are pretty amazing especially as I know that neither of them had done any enamelling before and one of them hadn't even used art clay silver. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and lovely to see them leave happily clutching their finished pieces of work.

Enamelling weekend in Edinburgh

I have had a fantastic weekend in Edinburgh.  I was invited by Emma Baird to run a weekend workshop on behalf of the Art Clay Guild Scottish region, together with Dorothy Cockrell.  We split into two groups and I began by leading those who had some experience of enamelling but had never used art clay silver, while Dorothy worked with those who were experienced in art clay silver but had little or no experience in enamelling.  I will post some of the images in a slide show but am sure you will agree that the group managed to produce some lovely pieces of work.  Emma has put some more pictures on her blog and so has Lesley Messam

Thank you all for your enthusiasm, I hope a few more will be joining the Guild of Enamellers and continue to explore this lovely medium.

Preparation

Today I have spent some time preparing for an enamelling weekend in Edinburgh. Myself and Dorothy Cockrell will be running a workshop on Saturday and Sunday for the Scottish region of the Art Clay Guild. The event has been organised by Emma Baird of Art Clay Scotland and The Little Bead Shop

I have been wondering what to take with me as I will have to pack everything into my suitcase and will have to change trains twice followed by a short bus ride across Edinburgh. I have a bad habit of making my suitcase so heavy that it is difficult to lift. Anyway, I have decided to post this image of some of my enamel test pieces as my folder of tests is one of the things I will be leaving at home.

I will take a few samples and notes and a couple of my recent big necklaces and I am certain Dorothy will have plenty of exciting pieces of work to inspire everyone too.

Blue necklace

Here is another necklace I showed at the exhibition at Guild of Enamellers annual conference a few days ago.  This one is hand made lamp worked glass beads combined with a large bead made in art clay silver and enamelled.  The tiny spacer beads are also hand made using art clay silver. Some of the glass beads have been included on the website of Beads and Beyond magazine, although I didn't get anywhere in the competition as the standard of entries was fantastic.  It is nice to have the picture on their website though.

The Guild of Enamellers is a fantastic organisation run by an enthusiastic group of people and it is a real honour to be their Chair (person) for the year.

Enamelling and beads

I have just spent a very hectic but enjoyable weekend at the annual conference of the Guild of Enamellers.  We always have a themed exhibition and this year the theme was textures, chosen by Carol Griffin when she was Chair.  

This was my entry.  It is a combination of lava beads with silver overlay paste and then enamelled onto; two beads made in art clay silver and enamelled and a whole variety of hand made lamp worked glass beads.  

Enamelling

I have spent a couple of days enamelling, seems like ages since I last did any.  On Thursday my friend Margaret and I had a full day experimenting.  I love working with Margaret she is so enthusiastic and always willing to try out new ideas.  We did attempt riso screening but found some of my new screens didn't work so had to resort to using the old ones.  We then went on to try screen printing using enamel ink on pre-enamelled steel from W G Ball; grinding crayons down and painting with them and then Margaret threw in some sand and fine copper wire mesh.  I followed this yesterday with enamelling very carefully onto some of the beads I made a couple of weeks ago.  I also enamelled this pendant that I had made ages ago but wasn't very happy with.  I have combined two shades of lilac enamel with dyed cultered pearls I bought a year ago.  I will be wearing this one at the forthcoming Guild of Enamellers annual conference.  It is the 30th (pearl) anniversary of the Guild and after the conference I will take on the role of Chairman for the forthcoming year.

Snow and enamelling

Well yesterday I worked really hard to enamel a batch of work and it is all ready to send out, pretty spring colours and all.  Of course there is now a great deal of snow and absolutely no way I will be able to get to the post office until it clears.  Here is a view of the road from my house, taken at lunchtime.  It has continued to snow since then - pretty but not very useful!