My Brown Wren Jewelry and Jewelry Making Tutorials

Earth Conscious Jewelry & Jewelry Making Tutorials

Enamel and Etching (Basse Taille) - What a Fun Combo!

enamel jewelryTammi SloanComment

I’ve spent a lot of time these days just doodling, trying to get inspired. Like many artists, I have times when the ideas just aren’t flowing, but my doodles keep me creative. Lately, I’ve been thinking about ways to incorporate them into 2D art and my jewelry.

This week, I experimented with etching my drawings in copper. I was hoping to enamel over the etchings with opaque colors, but the etchings weren’t quite deep enough to accomplish what I had in mind. So, I pulled out the transparents and started playing.

Transparent enamels can be very tricky. I haven’t done much with them for that reason. It’s a whole other ball of wax. Firing temps and times are so different than opaques. I had some successes and some half successes. I wouldn’t call them total failures. I stuck with one color to see what I could come up with and adjusted time and temp with each attempt. I even pulled out the enamling Bible - The Art of Enameling by Linda Darty. With the info there, I now know that I need to fire lower and longer to prevent the edges from burning (though I like the look of it on the larger oval).

I want to set the large oval with a straight sided bezel with six tabs. I’m not sure yet what the bail will look like, but I want to incorporate a small green stone in it. It will likely hang on a snake chain for substance. Here are a few examples of my attempts at Basse Taille Enameling.

Basse Taille Enamel - experiments by My Brown Wren

Basse Taille Enamel - experiments by My Brown Wren

These pieces were etched using electricity. If you are interested in learning to etch without acid, I have two tutorials available on my classes and tutorials page. The copper etching tutorial is a simple, step-by-step PDF that shows you how to etch copper, brass, bronze and nickel with salt water and electricity. My tutorial on how to etch silver is an hour long video with a backup PDF tutorial that goes through all the steps to etch silver without acid. It’s been a work in progress for a couple of years, but I finally got it done this summer. I’m just a little late in getting the word out…

Being A Women Ain't Easy

enamel jewelry, votes for womenTammi Sloan1 Comment

In the late 1800's women started seeing that the cards were stacked against them.  There wasn't fair representation, fair wages or fair treatment in the workplace or at home.  Women started fighting back by demanding the right to vote.  They lobbied members of Congress, they staged rallies and parades, and they protested in great numbers.  All of this was disruptive to "civilized" male society, and men fought back, and they fought dirty.  They assaulted women protesters in an attempt to humiliate them.  They even jailed them in an attempt to quiet them.  Remember, during that time, women had no rights.  They worked longer hours than men and made 1/3 of the wages of men.  We've come a long way baby, but not far enough!

For the last couple of months I have been creating a series of Women's Suffrage jewelry to honor those women that fought so hard for our right to vote and for fair and humanitarian treatment.  Each piece is one-of-a-kind, enameled copper with sepia tone photographic images.  Each piece is a reminder of where we've been and where we could return if we continue to take our rights for granted.

I have been researching these women, their lives and their legacy.  I am grateful for all they have done to bring awareness to the inequities in society between men and women.  I fear we are heading back to that time with all of the new policy changes in our current administration.  It's important to me that women's equality become a reality, not just a dream.  This project is my way of raising awareness for the cause.

Getting Ready for The Port Clinton Holiday Makers Tour

Tammi SloanComment

I've been keeping busy in the studio most afternoons getting ready for The Port Clinton Holiday Makers Tour.  It's December 2nd from 10-4.  It's been something that we at Blueschool Arts have been wanting to do for a couple of years.  There are five businesses participating this year - Abundant Earth Fiber Mill, Blueschool Arts (of course), Island Nosh, Make Whidbey and Whidbey Glass Gallery.  This is our first Makers Tour.  It is happening the same weekend as the Clinton Winter Market, which the Clinton Chamber of Commerce organizes.  We really hope The Makers Tour is something that will take off and bring awareness about the growing arts community in downtown Clinton.  For more details, click here for a map/flyer that Karin Bolstad, one of my Blueschool pals, designed.  It's pretty cool!

In addition to pins, I've been creating all sorts of new earring designs using painting enamels and acrylic enamel with the sgraffito technique.  I like how the combination of these two materials has taken me in a fresh, new direction.

I am also playing with prong setting some of my enameled cabochons that I made during my silk screening class.  Here is an example of one I did yesterday.  I embedded the silver wires in the soldering block, tight up against the silver ring I made.  It really made the process pretty simple.  Practice makes perfect.  I can hear my mother saying that.  Soldering is something that takes a lot of practice.  There is so much to learn about how to hold things together and how much heat to apply and different types of fluxes, but that's for another post.

 

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