I haven't worked with enamel in quite sometime...it is not for the person who likes immediate gratification! Some day I may once again be tempted to fire up the enameling kiln and play with the colorful ground glass powders. I titled this brooch "The King's Table". It's quite abstract, but if you look really hard, you'll see a crown, fork, dish, and bread. This is cloisonné enamel on 18 gauge copper in which pieces of fine silver strip were placed on edge in an initial layer of enamel to create a design and then fired to embed the strips into the enamel. The resulting chambers were then filled with thin layers of colored glass powder and fired numerous times. When the final layer of enamel had been fired, the surface was evenly sanded with different grit sanding stones to achieve a level surface. The piece was then fired one more time to bring the high gloss surface back and then set in a fine silver bezel which had been soldered to scratch textured sterling silver backing. A small tube-set garnet sits at the bottom along with a textured 18/k gold/bi-metal saw-tooth strip. The colors in this piece please me...rich and vivid with pieces of 24k gold and fine silver foil rectangles placed strategically about the surface.
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