Cloisonne enamel

It seems like ages since I had a day to myself in the studio.

I had a go at cloisonne for my next two birds for the 'Bird a Week'challenge (I have fallen a bit behind with this project).  They still need a bit of a polish but I feel quite positive about the work I have done today.  I also did a couple more embellished beads and have made some glass beads to go with them, although they are still in the kiln anealling.

New classes

During the middle of winter I don't usually teach classes in my studio because there is always the chance the roads will be too bad for students to get here.  This winter has been particularly snowy, I don't remember having this much snow in December before.  Anyway, it gives me a bit of free time to play around with new ideas.  At the moment I am testing out an idea for a workshop embellishing beads and here are my first two samples.  The smaller of the two is 16mm in diameter and they are both enamelled.  I will be running this as a workshop later in 2011, let me know if you are interested in learning this technique.