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Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies

Category: Technical Articles 2001

Tony Stephens

In the 18^th century, relatively unskilled craftsmen produced beautifully painted enamels using transfers of images created by highly skilled artists. On reading Susan Benjamin's English Enamel Boxes, I began to wonder whether it might be possible to resurrect the 18^th century technique of transferring engraved images to enamel. My motivation was the thought that even my modest engraving skills might produce better artwork than I could produce by free-hand.

At a Region 1 Guild meeting in Edinburgh in Oct 2000, I mentioned to fellow Guild member Brian Moore that I had failed to pick up clean images from engravings. Brian told me that, not only had he been able to replicate the 18^th century technique, but thought that it might be possible to produce the same results in a much simpler way, using an inkjet printer. I was instantly intrigued by this idea, for it promised the possibility of using an infinitely wider source of material for artistic inspiration, - the camera, the scanner and the internet. In writing this article I cannot claim any credit for the idea (which is Brian's) or escape criticism for any deficiencies in the execution.

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