Second Workshop

Yesterday I ran my second Enamelling Workshop at the Firegems studio. This week everyone chose to make pendants. They were quite ambitious with their ideas – choosing to cut into the copper blanks, folding them and enamelling both sides.

The smallest items were torch fired. A lovely easy technique that allows you to watch the changes in the enamel.

We used the kiln to fire the larger pieces and to allow us to enamel both sides of the pendants.

Some pieces had a few firings to add a second colour or pattern.

This chunky pendant was made to be reversible – blue and green on one side and red and orange on the other.

All the wonderful creations from this productive day:

I’ll be posting more images on my Facebook page @hannahduncancreations

First Workshop

On Saturday I ran my first Enamelling Workshop at the Firegems studio. There, I taught four lovely ladies how to enamel.

Here’s what we got up to together:

Choosing their copper blanks; everyone sat to draw out their ideas.

I then demonstrated how to sift and torch fire the enamel onto the copper blanks.

Everyone then took their turns firing their base layers.

In the afternoon, after a delicious lunch provided by Dawn Phillips (Thank you Dawn!), using the kiln we began building up the layers and patterns with different colours and decoration.

It was exciting to see what had happened to each piece once they were taken out of the kiln.

In the end everyone left with something they had made themselves – a pendant, pair of earrings or charms for a bracelet. I hope they were all pleased with their jewellery and enjoyed their day. I was certainly impressed with what they made.

Enamelling Workshop

I’m really excited (and a bit nervous) to be running an Enamelling Workshop next month. As a favour I’ve recently been looking after the Firegems mosaic workshops and in return I am being allowed use of the studio for my own work.
As the spaces for my workshop have been filling up I’ve been stocking up on my enamelling materials and tools. It’s always exciting opening up parcels. Now I’ve got a decent range of enamel colours, decorative media and copper shapes – something for everyone hopefully.