Cloisonne Pendant (cont'd)

Progressing slowly on the pendant. For the background I wet-packed two layers of Grass Green for shadowing and then added a layer of Peppermint Green which needs a second or third coating. The butterfly wings have two layers of Rose Pink but the colour isn't as bright as I expected. I also added a layer of Perriwinkle in the tips of the wings but after firing it seems to have blended with the pink. The body has an opaque yellow until I can think of what else to do with it.

Pendant after two layers

Almost done. I wet-packed several more layers into the cloisonne and the colours are becoming more vibrant. The cloisonne was beginning to curve from all of the firings so the instructor helped me flatten the piece by heating it up and then smashing it flat between two heavy metal plates immediately after removing it from the kiln. It didn't seem like a very sophisticated technique but was very effective. I was skeptical that the enamel wouldn't just crack off. In fact, it would have if we had smashed it even 5 seconds later and the piece had cooled down too much. 

After the cloisonne was flat it was easy to stone, which involves scrubbing it under running water with a piece of carborundum (silicon carbide). This removed excess enamel that was covering the cloisonne wire so now the butterfly outline looks like it is glowing. The cloisonne will undergo one last firing to maturity next week.

Cloisonne Pendant

Last night I started my cloisonne pendant which involved using tweezers and my fingers to tediously form delicate thin strips of copper into shape and then adhere them to the pendant using Klyr-fire. The piece was then put in the kiln and heated until the copper strips started to sink into the clear flux base coat (but not touching the actual copper base).

This was the largest piece of copper I had which is about 4cm x 4cm. When I drew the butterfly onto paper and shaped the copper strips on top of the sketch I forgot that I had previously drilled holes into the top of the pendant. When I transferred the copper strips to the actual pendant I couldn't find an arrangement that avoided overlapping the wings with either of the holes. Because forming the butterfly shape had been so tedious I decided not to tamper further with the design and will just need to work with what I have.

The next step will be to wet-pack the enamel powder into the different cells (rather than sifting which offers less control). The pendant has to be pickled in between each firing since the copper strips are bare and will develop firescale each time. Since the wire was not bent completely flat you can see some small gaps between the strip and the pendant base in the top right photo. Once I begin to add layers of enamel into the cells the gaps will disappear and the strips will be held much more solidly in place.