I’ve finally got those images that I promised in my last post.

This is those same pieces of metal from the last photo, but enamelled! (Well, most of them, the insets of the big brooch at the top are m.i.a. since they weren’t enamelled yet.) This being a progress shot, none of the pieces are finished, as the white ones were all primed with a mix of clear + porcelain slip for some drawing action.

If you look close (or click on the image for the bigger version), you’ll also notice that the red piece is pinging at the holes. To remedy this I had to water everything down, doing a much thinner layer of clear, and two very thin coats of red. This time it’s totally stable, but beautifully shiny too!

To clarify, these pieces are all definitely stainless steel (excuse my mixup in the comments of the last post), with 925 silver fixings soldered with IT solder onto the backs, so are enamelled on one side only.

I’ve finished two of these pieces, while the third was a bit more tricky, but is now enamelled and awaiting assembly. That was the one that pinged the red layers. The centrepiece of that brooch (top left) didn’t appreciate the level of layering around those eight little holes, so rather than drawing in graphite, which involved two layers of enamel below and above it, I used a scraffito technique through an unfired layer of white as it required fewer. If I was a better enamellist I’m sure the graphite would have worked fine…

I have also finished a neckpiece that has an enamelled centrepiece, but more on that later. Here’s what the bottom right pieces look like assembled.

Melissa Cameron

Melissa is a jewellery artist from Australia living in Seattle in the US. Her works can be found in the National Gallery of Australia as well as the Cheongju City Collection in South Korea. Her enamel works typically display subtle enamel incursions amidst precise laser cut stainless steel layers.

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