Building a Strong Foundation

Get to know your products. We have several metals to choose from, some need different fluxes, some fire at different temperatures. The same goes for the enamels not only are these different enamels for different metals but different enamels. Lead or no lead? Some information on the differences is posted in enamels.

I know this is not what most beginning enamelist, or even enamelist in general, want to spend time doing. We all have that sense and need of immediate gratification. But enamels are not like color pencils, water colors, or oils paints, where you can see your colors by just laying them out. Our color palate is in fine grains of enamel with no color relationship to the fired enamel. Thus making it impossible to know what the color will look like until after we fire our jewel. It is no fun to look at a fired piece and say yuck!

Make color plates and know your colors, this will build a strong foundation of an excellent enamelist!

I will return with plate samples. But take all your blues and lay them out next to each other, make that perfect gradation. Try layering different colors on top of each other. And reverse that. You will be very surprised that the reverse can be so different!