Kiln Fired Enamelling with Katie Sanderson

Katie is a Forest of Dean based enamel artist of 16 years.

“When I think of my work and my relationship with this ancient art form the words magical, mystical, unpredictable, absorbing, and transforming all come to mind.

I lean towards the more experimental approaches pushing the materials and tools further pursuing unique results.

My work is often focussed on creating pieces of work that can be hung in your home but for me it all started with jewellery and that is often where I go when I want to play with the techniques.

Most of my work involves the wet packing, stencilling, sgraffito, adding decorative media and high firing techniques all of which will be covered in the workshop.”

Course Aims

On this two day workshop you will produce at least 6 pieces these will be small pictures as well jewellery such as pendants, earrings.

All enamelling will be done on copper and copper will be provided already cut.

In this course you will produce a small enamelled picture using the wet pack method and or stencilling, the subject matter can be of your choosing. The challenge I plan to take you through is reproducing something in enamel working out the steps to achieve it deciding on the end results and working through the stages required. In so doing I hope to show you the potential of working in enamel.

You will have the option to produce more than one picture so students are welcome to bring a few photos to work from.
You will also produce pendants and earrings exploring a variety of techniques, as mentioned above.
One the first day we will cover sieving, stencilling, wet packing, adding decoration and sgraffito using opaque enamels.
One the second day we will cover high firing, swirling, transparent enamels, adding fine silver foil.
If you came to the previous masterclass or already have some experience I will encourage you to explore techniques you haven’t tried before or only have brief experience in. For example swirling and high firing.

Katie’s teaching style is verbal introduction with examples, group demonstrations and one to one instructions. Students will be asked to find and bring photos to work from to create a landscape or seascape or other subject matter, ideally bring 3.

Equipment

Students aren’t required to bring any equipment but you may want to use your own infrared safety glasses if you have them (some will be provided). It is also advisable to wear a FFP3 disposable mask, some will be provided but if you’d rather use your own please bring that.

I would encourage students to bring photos that they can work from when doing a picture. If they wish to bring a small box frame to mount their work while on the course they are welcome to do that or they can take their work home to mount. The picture size they will work on will be no bigger than
8cm by 8cm.

The tutor will bring:

• Kiln x 2
• Unleaded enamel powders
• Copper shapes and copper shim
• Fine Silver foil
• Glass decoration
• Firing forks, trivets, meshes
• Safety pickle
• Cleaning bowls and stones
• Sieves

Materials:

• Copper shapes and copper shim
• Unleaded enamels
• Fine silver foil
• Decorative media
• Jewellery findings

At an approximate cost of £20-25 pp