A mermaid in glass- a work in progress

              Creating a gift that will hold a six year old's attention for more than six minutes is challenging enough, not least when the gift is an enameled mermaid! My six year old hyperactive niece is quite creative, painting, making collages, writing small poems, so I always have to be extremely creative myself while making her gift.

Mermaid with wires fused on to flux base

She has always been fascinated by princess especially the Disney kind! 

              So on her birthday this year I decided to make an enameled panel featuring her favorite mermaid princess 'Ariel', in cloissone enamel.

Hunting for a suitable image was easy enough but putting the copper wires in place took a lot more time than what I had imagined.

I started out by cutting out the outline around the mermaid and her seat of sea rock out of 22 gauge copper and after annealing and pickling it , I washed it, wiped it dry, countered ( a coating done on the reveres to prevent the metal from warping) it, then sifted 80 mesh medium fusing flux on it.

After firing it once (at approximately 750 degrees Celsius)I realized I had not managed to coat it properly, so I cleaned the piece again under tap water with a nylon brush re-countered it and then sifted one more layer of the flux. This time after firing the copper had been completely covered , so I started out with laying the wires. For this I first printed out a scaled image of the mermaid and the rock, sea-weeds, shells, then laid it under a sheet of glass( to avoid the paper from moving and thus shifting my wires). I had a longish length of 18 gu. copper wire rolled out in my rolling mill to flatten it slightly. First I cut to size and shaped each piece as per the design onto the glass, once that was done, the wires were all heated pickled, rinsed and dipped in gum tragacanth( guess I am old fashioned that way , don't yet use clear fire)  Once all the wires were done they were transferred onto the sheet of fluxed copper and fired again for a minute and a half at 750 degrees Celsius.

Mermaid with first layers of colour application

                 The second step was laying down the first few colours, starting with the red since that takes a higher temperature and the first layers of the major areas. It took me about 8 firings to complete the mermaid, but unfortunately did not manage to click pictures of her at every stage :(
         Here she is on the firing rack with the first layer of colours applied, just as she is about to go into the furnace.The most exciting thing about enameling though is watching the colours change as they come out of the furnace, they go from dark red to gradually the hues they actually are. Hope to click pictures of those stages sometime!

        Choosing the right colours was extremely difficult as my enamel colour collection is not that extensive, and for the most part I use locally available colours, which are not always consistent :(
I used a transparent blue which actually had a small amount of a light opaque colour mixed in it for the water and while the shells and the rock are opaque, the mermaids tail and the sea-weeds got a transparent treatment.
         She is just about done now with just the framing done and I shall be sharing her with you in about a day or so, along with the unique framing idea I have come up with .

        So have you had to pick you brains coming up with ideas for your sweet lil nephews and nieces? What are some of the monster DIY's you have undertaken? Would love to hear ideas, ( hey we all have adorable lil kiddies around us !! )