Shirley Gore

On the 19^th of May last year Region 7 held a kiln fired bead workshop which was led by Sharon Ford.

 I had attended with a project in mind, which was to enamel some beads to be incorporated into the necklace for a pendant piece that I’d made.

I had enamelled a circular copper pendant using a mixture of cloisonné, wet laying and wet screening through a homemade UV screen. My base layer was DW1 white with inlaid round copper wires. The resultant cloisons were then wet layed with Aoki leaded enamels in mauve, yellow and green with Milton Bridge onglaze in blue being screened over the top. It would appear that the DW1 and the yellow Aoki didn’t like one another as some of the yellow cracked off leaving what I’m going to call texture!!!!!

 

For the beads I used oval shaped copper beads that Sharon had brought with her. She did a demonstration and explained that two thin layers of enamel were better than one thick one and that we had to keep our firing temperature to around 800 degrees Centigrade as this wasn’t about high firing and more about controlled heat.

 

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