VITREOUS ENAMEL - GOING LARGE

I have just come back from a blissful 4 day course at the College of West Dean near Chichester.
Enamel for large -scale public art with Elizabeth Turrell explored enamelling onto a steel substrate and culminated in a day on the Isle of White visiting AJ Wells & Sons to work on a larger sample.
These samples were made in the first 2 days of the course and are about 4in x 4ins.

Flexing our artistic muscles and warming up for our visit to the factory.

AJ Wells is the company that makes the Underground station signs...yes they are enamelled. The tour of the factory was fascinating and a real eye opener to see enamel on an industrial scale. They work with artists to create public art projects too...I can only dream.

Here is my panel after screen printing the colour onto the surface and the mask is being removed.

This kiln is a touch larger than mine at home, but the same temperature. Here my panel is going in for a 15min firing.

Waiting for it to cool down. I had the opportunity to do one firing on my panel, so I have a cunning plan to finish it and when I have I will share the piece with you all.

It is very exciting to make larger work and has given me a taste for it, the possibilities are amazing. Thankyou Elizabeth, West Dean and particularly AJ Wells for letting artists loose in their busy factory.

LITTLE AND LARGE

Scale is an interesting issue, especially as it is very difficult to make out the sizes of things when they are posted like this.

These drawings are preparation pieces and are 80cm x 50cm.

This is a detail, the sheets of paper are A4.

Where as this enamel book is 5cm x 3cm.

I thought that it might be easy to make a tiny object, but there is not enough room to make it make complete sense. The collection of beetles at the Oxford Natural History Museum have more tiny specimens than the glamorously large beetles that appear in my big drawings. I know what I would prefer flying around!

FIELD NOTES

I have just finished these two enamelled note books

Both are 4ins x 2.5ins and made of steel.

This size gives me an ideal opportunity to experiment with the enamel and the photo resist film I am using to achieve the sand blasted images in the work.

ENAMEL - ENAMEL

The finishing touches have been made, I am particularly pleased with the sand blasted moth details, not quite through to the metal. It gives a lovely grainy, mat surface to the enamel. I have also sandblasted the enamel away on the back of the piece.

Now I have finish the concertina book I am now turning my energies onto developing the spiral bound note books. This is the first experiment.

About 3ins x 2ins, this book is made of steel and uses a variety of enamel techniques

Again I am exploring sandblasting images into the enamel surface.

The Twenty Twenty Gallery at Much Wenlock, Shropshire has just taken delivery of these beetle spoons, it is a lovely gallery and Much Wenlock is a great place for a day out.

SKETCH BOOK EXPERIMENTS

Back to the sketch book to plan a set of spiral note books in steel and enamel. Planning to keep them simple, uncluttered and 3"x 2".

A GRAND DAY OUT

The lovely Mr Brown dragged me out of the studio for an airing yesterday.
Where did we go? Looks like Italy, but no it was Birmingham.

Lots of public art, this Gormley for instance and this

striking painting on the side of a building. We spent most of the day in

the Museum and Art Gallery where there is an exquisite, free exhibition of da Vinci drawings.

I love the Martin Ware and there is also a beautiful collection of Ruskin Pottery, mouth watering colours.

Very Venice, not sure what this was about but a random photo shoot was taking place in the Museum.

Refreshed by my outing, I am now back at work in the studio.

ON GOING ENAMEL

You didn't think I would leave the metal blank did you,it's not that I can't leave well alone, but when I plan and draw something I do like to see it develop and appear in the flesh.

Minimal is not in my nature, but I would love to have that light, spare touch.This piece is not finished, I have just a few more transfers to attach and then sand blast some shapes into the enamelled surface.