So I have been writing this article to post to my website for a long time. I love to learn about how people create their art, I always read about it on other people's web sites. Only problem is, I want to DESIGN the page, so that will take time.

Lets start with the very basic.

What is Vitreous Enameling?
Vitreous Enameling is the process of fusing glass to metal at high temperatures.

Glass ground down to a fine sand consistency then either sifted or mixed with distilled water and painted onto the surface of the metal. It is then placed in a kiln on high until the glass melts and fuses to the metal.

Creating a durable glass finish rich with color.

The resulting piece has beautiful color and strength. The surface is smooth and hard and retains its color through chemicals, cleaner and sunlight

Applying enamel:
The basic method for getting your enamel onto your metal is
by sifting. The enamel comes in fine particles, like very fine sand. Making it easy to sift through a screen onto your piece. The screen is necessary to avoid lumps, which sometimes are present. After applying a coat of binder, you can sift gently over the whole piece making sure you have an even coat. You can sift two separate colors to blend where they meet.

A better method for blending is Wet-Packing. Wet packing is where you take your enamel and mix it with distilled water and paint your enamel on the surface of your metal. This method gives you more definition between colors and better control on blending. This method is used for filling Champlevé and Cloisonné designs.


Liquid Enamels another method is using wet enamel. Ultra fine enamel is held together in a binding agent and you are able to dip your piece into the solution. This option is good for oddly shaped pieces

and is used to crate Sgrafitto designs.


So those are the basics, now we can get creative:

Stenciling, where a stencil is placed over the work and the powdered enamel is sifted over the top. The stencil is removed before firing, the enamel staying in a pattern, slightly raised.

Silk screening, same idea as a stencil, but with a silk screen, giving you more design options.


So once it's fired with its first layer of enamel, what now? Well you can stencil or silkscreen like I mentioned before.

There are also a few other fun things that can be done.

Chunks, threads, foil, and decals...

So one of my favorites is the "jewel effects" lumps. basically chunks of glass. It melts at a different rate than your sifted or painted enamel, so you end up with a raised lump in whatever color you choose. Lumps can be found in any color both transparent and opaque.
Here are some examples:



There are also threads of glass available with the same idea. Threads com in opaque colors only, giving you a line in your piece.



Another technique that would fit in here as something to do over fired enamel would be Cloisonne. I feel though, that Cloisonne deserves its own blog since it is a difficult and time consuming technique.

I will talk on that next time. Until then, check out my shop, I have some St Patrick's Day designss!!

http://www.ignisdesigns.etsy.com