New Pieces

Maybe the title should be 'Wordless Wednesday' - although by saying that I have definitely made it NOT a wordless day...........some of my new pieces for the show:

Autumn Colors (and some blues)

I was in the studio the other day with my nephew - we were fitting a necklace I had made for him - and he expressed an interest in trying his hand at torch firing some enamel on pennies.  After a short instruction period, he picked out a color (opaque orange - my personal nemesis for some reason), cleaned the pennies and proceeded to torch fire.  It was a resounding success.

His very first penny - very first attempt at torch firing enamel, and he's a natural!!!

The color got me to thinking about autumn and how quickly it's sneaking up on us - so I wanted to do some pennies that would look good in a "fall" jewelry piece. I have been wanting to layer colors in a staggered way - not the way I have been but in such a way that the layered colors will show on their own - and this is what I came up with:

And then because I loved how the pennies were turning out, I had to try a couple different colors..........

Some New Colors - but still Pennies!!!

My new enamel colors finally arrived - and in less than 24 hours I was back at the bench playing with color combinations.  I got some pink, some lavender and some off white which I combined in these:

The off white makes a nice base for other colors too...... like the red:

and the blue:

and the turquoise:

I did some other combinations:

orange and gold

gold, yellow and red

white, pink and red

These are currently available for purchase at Beads on the Kennebec AND she is having a contest (see rules and more information here ) based on pieces made using the enameled pennies. 

More Torch Fired Enamel Pieces

Another day of working with enamel.  This time I drilled the pennies then domed them before adding the enamel. 

I worked more with layering and colors......trying to achieve a depth to the colors and a more uniform coating of the enamel.  The multiple layers allowed a more varied palette of colors - I stayed in the blue/green family simply because I plan on making a bracelet with these. (the two red ones are from the last enameling session)

Torch Fired Enamel

if you arrived here from a link on Pinterest or another tutorial/craft site, I have posted a "tutorial" on how I enamel the pennies.  It's here

Oh what fun I had in the workshop yesterday.  For the last six months, I have been collecting information and supplies to try torch fired enamel and finally gave it a try this weekend.  And I'm hooked.  I love it!!! Armed with a tutorial or two (and a comprehensive lesson on using the torch from my patient SO) I drilled some pennies; cleaned them thoroughly and then set out to color them like jelly beans!  As a surprise, my DSO bought me a "starter kit" (of sorts) of assorted enamel powders - 14 little bags of color - to play with as I wanted.  I couldn't wait to get started.

Using the first tutorial I found, I mixed my first enamel powder color choice with distilled water (50/50 ratio) and filled in the top of my first penny.......a penny I hadn't drilled.  The tutorial said to let the enamel and water mixture dry but I did not have the patience to let it dry, so I fired away.  I was a little tentative with the torch at first, but wisely started out making some copper head pins which relaxed my fears a little.  After the first penny was fired, I let it cool in a fiber blanket.  Once it cooled down, I was thrilled with the color and look of it and couldn't wait to do more. 

Head Pins

Faced with the 14 bags of assorted colors, I couldn't wait to try more colors.  Using a screen from a faucet (I absolutely have to get a small hand held sifter) I sifted the colors directly onto the cleaned pennies - and did layers of colors. 

Turquoise enamel powder

Base of opaque orange with a layer of red on top

A layer of golden brown with a layer of turquoise on top

Golden brown with a sifting of my run-off waste

Just to prove that I really used pennies!!

A couple of great, informative articles/tutorials on how to torch fire enamel:

Copperheart's Blog and Ganoksin.