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Thank you to all the contributors

  • Rudolf Molnar
    • 15 posts
    November 17, 2012 4:11 PM EST

    Welcome to enamel universe

    I think all the people here share passion for beauty,handcrafted jewellery or large scale enamels.If you look to someone else work,you can see the project in all stages because you now how complicated this art can be.And the feeling when you took the red bright enamel from kiln and the colours slowly changed to all the shades is celestial.

    I hope one day there will be more cats,enamellers and peace on this planet:)

    R.

  • Trish White
    • Moderator
    • 114 posts
    November 18, 2012 9:01 AM EST

    Thank you Deborah for your kind words and appreciation of the efforts our members have put forth to make this site so beneficial to everyone, especially in this busy world, where many of our artists are busy working, teaching, raising families, doing exhibitions and craft shows. There is never enough time for everything but we are getting it done here on the site and I too have to keep saying "thanks". I have stacks of workshop notes piled high in my studio which contain priceless information shared by teachers over the years and it is my hope to get it all into the Notebooks.

    I hope you will also share your carved gemstone creations with us - as you can see by the featured artists stories,  many are also fine art painters, ceramicist, and fiber artists. I think most artists dabble in many different versions of art and crafts. There is so much to learn and try, altho, that can have its negatives also, as I look at the boxes of tools and and supplies I have invested in every new interest. Now, I have to smack myself when the urge to jump right into a new craft comes my way and just walk away.

    Please don't be intimidated by the art going up in the Gallery, we would all be in awe of your gemstones! 

    Keep it working!

    Trish

  • Deborah Kirkpatrick
    • 0 posts
    November 19, 2012 9:57 AM EST

    Trish:

    I hope that you are recovering from the hurricane; no one can understand how destructive and disruptive one is until they've gone through it. Hope life is getting back to normal for you.

    Rudolf, there may be enough cats in the world already; I think they all live at my house

    Trish, I posted a link to my Picasa page before, here it is again: https://picasaweb.google.com/deborahkirkpatrick56. Here are a few pictures of the things I do.

     This piece is carved boar tusk and tuff (volcanic rock), 16k gold with rubies and citrines, sterling silver sea fan with sapphires on aventurine and glass set into acrylic, with a river rock and a piece of real coral. I make all the elements of my pieces, except for the faceted stones (and I don't intend to go down that rabbit hole). This piece is several (3-4) years old. The mermaid is actually a pendant.

    This piece is more recent, and I wanted to enamel the leaf and stem, but turned coward. Since it was sterling silver, I was afraid of the potential change in color and transparency of the enamels, and I wanted the grooves and textures to show, so I didn't want to use flux. I did some samples, and found that alot of my "transparent" enamel is now translucent (age and deteriation I suppose), and I was under the gun to get it finished. It's carved of lavender turkish jadeite, california nephrite jade with a burmese jadeite base. I ended up just using liver of sulfur on the sterling. It's so busy, it might have been a mistake to enamel it anyway.

    I hope to post a unremarkable enamel soon, it is the background of a carved piece and not real special. But this is just to give you guys an idea of what I do.

    Thanks again to everyone for sharing your expertise so freely.

     

    Debbie K

     

  • Deborah Kirkpatrick
    • 0 posts
    November 16, 2012 11:09 PM EST

    I've been reading as much as I can in the Notebooks, most of the Forum topics and looking at all of the galleries I can, and I want to tell you how much I appreciate all the people who have shared all their knowledge and experience so freely. Edmund, in particular, is a virtual textbook for techniques and information.

    My expertise is in carving gemstones, and I try to tell all I know. I don't understand, and never have, why some folks are so scared to let others know about things that are simply techniques. I looked through 4 books on enameling to find out how to deal with textured foil (so it doesn't flatten out) to no avail, but the answer was here to find rather easily.

    My interest in enameling, due to the generous gift I received and finding this website, has been rekindled and I've done a cloisonne piece. I'm showing others how, and am planning a piece that I hope will be nice. I just have to finish up a jewelry piece first (which has an enameled background).

    Thank you again, and hope to share pictures of things in the future. The standards around here are pretty high, so it's intimidating to post photos.

    Debbie K