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Basse Taille and Cloisonne Pendant – Part III

When beginning an enamel, you first must sift a little clear glass onto the base, which will act as an adhesive for the wires. Since my next step is to bend and attach wires for the design, I am here sifting on a thin coating of Bovano #3, the clearest clear I have found.

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I use alcohol instead of water to help the grains of glass stick, as it evaporates away fast and there is less chance of it muddying the clarity. It is best to use a thin coating, like snow in North Carolina.
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And heat it. I use an ultra-lite kiln, good only for a few things, but I like it for what I do. You can also just use a torch, it works fine, just heat it from below. I have other posts on torch-firing, if that is your interest.

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And there it is, cooling on a steel block, which sucks the heat right off. There are some other projects waiting for some attention.

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OK. So this is the commission: match the tattoo. On the surface, this would appear to be fairly similar to the designs I already do, but once I start really looking at the design, I realize I’ll have to use some technology to make a replica, or get even close.
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So I fire up the old Mac, with the ancient copy of photoshop, and pull out the lines from the photo. I always make a sheet of various sizes of the image, because I am measurement challenged, and can’t envision the exact size without looking at it on paper.

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The outer line I will draw with enamel, rather than using a wire. I think this will be closer to the tattoo.

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Here I am using a sharpie to put some guidelines on the base. The sharpie will burn away when I fire on the wires.

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I use the drawing to work over and golly, this was a whole lot harder than I thought…so after a struggle,

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I think I have what I was looking for.

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Lillian Jones

Lillian Jones

Is a teacher and metalsmith in North Carolina, USA. She works both in silver fabrication and enamel. Her imagery is drawn from the geometries of nature, and an interest in illustration.

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