To set or not to set!

Recently I was looking at all of my enameled panels with a view to checking up on them and cleaning & I found a stack of 10 enameled rounds, that I had worked on more than a year back. Looking at these pieces again, I realized that back then I would have framed them as probably a wall piece on a simple wooden frame. But now with all my jewellery making skills, I am wondering whether I could simply 'set' these as I would set any enameled 'jewel'. Or would it be more interesting to embed them in an oil painting? Or perhaps use them as part of a sculptural piece? Well I guess my thoughts are scattered right now but if anything strikes you do drop a line !

Flowers on the road

A few years ago back when I decided to quit all the crazy designing and teaching jobs I was into -not that they weren't fun but I realized I was not really doing what I was most passionate about and simply had to get back to my easel,in this case my  furnace. I started experimenting with enamels on steel  & copper panels, with liquid and vitreous enamels. Mostly I was into wet packing a technique where you meticulously pack the enamel that has been moistened with water with the help of s small round brush. but I also experimented with liquid enamels and mostly just tried to get an even coat of the colour ( tough on a newbie these liquid enamels! ) rather than too many textures with them. Recently going through a drawer full of old and unfinished metal pieces I found a whole stack of these and thought I could use them or at any rate finish them so here are the first three in the series. They do not have a common theme running through because to begin with these were just experiments so here they are . I would like to hear ideas on how best to use them. I have a few ideas one was to have them made into box lids, I have some cute pinewood boxes and sell them or gift them. The other idea was by a friend who suggested I use them to create a larger panel which could be turned into a wall clock. Any other ideas ? Would love to hear them do drop a line. :)

One Tree, Enamel on Steel
© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

Flowers on the road, Enamel on Steel
© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

Gulmohar, Enamel on Steel
© 2011 Nayna Shriyan

Arow heads fit for cupid!

Arrow heads for my quiver full of arrows sculpture

Will these arrow heads work for Cupid? My arrow heads finally done! Well not complete but here is their look, what do you think? These are the arrow heads and the shafts are going copper pipe with a very interesting joining technique , that I will be posting in detail later on. The body of the quiver too is in its final stages watch this space ( feeling like a tabloid here :P )

Continuing the Quiver saga........

Continuing the quiver saga...

Currently I am completely taken in with the arrows and their designs, keeping in mind that these arrows are not meant to hurt but meant for the viewers to fall in love with them, I decided that they had to be of different shapes and have bright colours. Here they are cut and ready to be enameled and with the first coat of transparent flux fired and the cloisonne wire  . I will be revealing the finished pieces complete with all the wires and enamels in place as I want the final design to be a surprise! Of course the quiver itself is not being ignored, here it is with one coat of flux and the armature that will be holding it upright Although I will admit not too much of the electro-forming has stayed in place, I have faith that I can attach it by way of embedding it with the flux. for now this is where we are all fluxed up !!

Mermaid in glass -2

        Here she is all fired and ready! Having decided to change her skin colour to a more suitable colour, she took one last extra run in the furnace, before she was complete. I decided to frame her using a completely contrasting medium, paper! I had a shape cut out of 8mm MDF wood and created the framing for her out of paper mache pulp in the shape of seaweeds and shells, in order to make the mermaid feel more at home I also painted the base wood a beautiful bright sea green, along with a few waves!

       Yesterday she traveled to her new home, and was received with much joy (actually this beautiful wide grin that my niece reserves for something she really loves!! ) She will be gracing the walls in my niece's room after it gets a new coat of  paint( hey she is a princess after all! )

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 !! )

Growing enameled trees in my studio

Blue tree bowl, vitreous enamel on copper ©2011 Nayna Shriyan

Continuing on my recycling spree, I shaped these two large (compared to the earlier bowls) bowls and decided to go completely abstract with them. I twisted the wire and was trying to get a dark base below the horizontal wire and a lighter colour above. Well that is what I was thinking but enamel colours do have a mind of their own !! When the bowls came out of the furnace, not only had the colours slumped down around the edges of the wire but also around the twisted wire, looking exactly like trees!! I decided to go with the flow and added a few more sprinkles and voila! two trees were looking up at me :)

Green tree bowl, vitreous enamel on copper                      ©2011 Nayna Shriyan

From Dishes to Bowls!!

           Having decided to de-clutter, I was going through some of the junk in the kitchen, when I happened upon some old copper plates. These plates are usually used in worship rituals, but  I found that we seemed to have a large number of them, lying around, (way more than required)!! Guess someone goofed and went on a shopping spree!! 

Rose bowl , vitreous enamel on copper               ©2011Nayna Shriyan

             Being a metal-artist to the core, my first thought was can I use these? Of course the natural answer was -Bowls! I decided to convert the dishes to bowls, while I had previously been working on similar projects with my gulmohar bowl and blue and pink bowls, I wanted to take these to another level. So I filled them with some pitch and before I knew it there were two flowers beaming up at me :)The bowl with the white flower was inspired by a delicate white flower that grows in my little balcony garden, and the second one a beautiful single red rose!.These two bowls are different in the sense that I have repoussed them before enameling them.

White flower, vitreous enamel on copper     ©2011 Nayna Shriyan

Here's how they look post enameling.  So what do you think? Should I have left them repoussed or does the colour bring out a better look in them?Although this way they can be viewed differently from both the sides. I am planning more bowls but I am waiting to hear some opinions before I go and repousse them !

© 2010 Nayna Shriyan, copper , vitreous enamel

Copper bowls with crackle medium, not sure whether the crackle effect has come out like its supposed to but, I sure am loving it !! I think I may have over fired them, but would like to keep continuing to experiment.

© 2010 Nayna Shriyan copper, vitreous enamel

© 2010 Nayna Shriyan  copper bowl, copper wire, and vitreous enamel  5"' x 5" x 1"

A while back I had written about wanting to work with the gulmohar flower as my inspiration, ( 'The art of the gulmohar flower' ) I have to confess  I have not posted my work with regards to the subject regulary :( but  I intend to change that by posting my first effort, an enameled bowl.

I kept this one simple by using mostly transparent enamels, layered to create the cool green leaves against the fiery orange red flowers, surrounded by the bright blue summer sky.

The copper wires really kept me on my toes, always threatening to fall off inside the kiln, but fortunately except for one or two mishaps I manged to get them to stay put !!