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| Today's three cloisonné pieces |
Today was another day, and apparently sleeping on what I learned yesterday and attacking it fresh this morning made a big difference. I spent the morning bending wires and then in the afternoon I took prepped domed ovals (they already had white enamel on the front and counter enamel--the balance enamel--on the back) and added gold and silver leaf, fine silver cloisonné wire, and black enamel to them. Finally after dinner tonight I started adding color to them and I finished three before finally coming back to my room at 11:00. I say finished because I have finished firing them. They still need to be ground and polished.
I have to be up early in the morning, whether I want to or not, because the bathroom for my floor in the dorm is right across the hall from my room. The door is left open, so as all the perky (loud) morning people are in the getting ready it sounds like a barnyard at feeding time. They're really nice women, but, sheesh! Talk about chickens cackling in a barn...
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Ovals prepped with gold and silver foil and fine silver cloisonné wire attached--one even has a bit of enamel on it
(pre-firing) |
3 comments:
No roosters, then?
so how do you attach the silver cloisonne wire to the base?
You either put a thin layer of clear enamel (flux) or white enamel on the surface of the piece and fire it glossy. Then you glue the wires to the top with a thick blue glue (elmer's would also work) and put the piece back in the kiln. You fire it until the glue burns off (goes from black to clear) and then you take the piece out of the kiln. You can at that tie gently tap the wires to make sure they have fused to the base enamel. Voilà!
Then you're ready to start adding leaf and layers of color (Ricky uses two layers of color).
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