Kathleen Kay

Last term I suggested that each of my adult education students, just for fun and basic enamelling practice, should make a novelty clock. To start their, imaginations ticking I thought I would tackle a few myself and the first one, a sunflower, is now marking time in the kitchen until our next class.

Making the sunflower is easy enough for newcomers to enamelling to try, and would make a change from small jewellery items.

I used 28 elongated, petal shaped, stamped copper blanks (Milton Bridge No 82). These were counter enamelled, slightly bowed, cleaned and hard fluxed.

A thin layer of opaque sunflower enamel (Milton Bridge O105) was sprinkled onto the flux and fine lines scribed the length of the petals, revealing the flux. These petals were fired at 820°C - for only 75 seconds in order to hold the stripey texture.

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