Cloisonne Last Step, Maybe

Well this may be the last step, or I may decide to put it back in the kiln and make it shiny. Oh, by the way I got a kiln for Christmas! D found a Paragon on craigs list that was in really good condition, less then a year old and half the price. Yay! He is so good at finding great things at great prices.

After looking at the photos you can see where granules of other colors of enamel made their way into the wrong color sections. And, where in some of the tighter areas I didn't get enamel in at all. Darn.

But it's my first piece and was definitely a learning experience. The camera found all of the flaws. Which  makes me think taking a picture between layers might be a good idea so that I know where I need to make corrections...I do have a pair of magnifying jewelers glasses...maybe I need a stronger pair? (click on a photo to see the detail)

This piece is now completely matte finish and is very smooth. The texture feels like well worn sea-glass. The wires that outline the design are copper and will get darker and patina over time. It will be interesting to see how this changes the look of the piece. If it happens anytime soon I'll show it to you again. Here it is before I sanded down the wires and enamel, cloisonne rose.

 
This last shot is the back. Since I forgot to take photos of it for my other posts I thought you might want to see what the counter enamel looks like...kinda like denim.

Cloisonne Final Coat

This is the last coat of enamel on this piece. As you can see the colors  have more depth and consistency. I really like how the leaf turned out. I began with an opaque green, then I accidentally used a transparent green. A happy accident! The next step is to begin using a sanding stone to sand the wires and glass to get an even surface.  While you can't see it in the photo, the glass is uneven. I haven't shown you the back, but there are counter balance layers of enamel to keep the piece from warping.