First attempt using glass enamels

This is my impression of a poppy field. The first firing of red is rather murky, but subsequent firings seemed to give the right colours. It's a bit blobby and the stalks are far too thick; that's what comes of applying enamel with a bent paperclip instead of a brush. The background was sponged on and came out much better.



Sorry for the huge image...

LOVE the huge image

That's gorgeous Elaine. Murky red or not. It looks like a poppy field to me. Brilliant!

I like the size of the image too.

Nice work Elaine its a beautiful field of flowers

Might not be poppy red but lovely all the same, great sky and the bubbles remind me of the morning dew.

When Ann and I did our enameling day I think our tutor said that red enamel on metal needed a different firing temperature than the other colours - I think it was slightly lower so might that apply to glass as well Elaine.

Thank you all.

Lynne, the (brief) instructions say that red, yellow & black flow slightly lower and that colours can go murky if they're too thick, so it could be a combination of the two. This is my very first attempt, so I've plenty of experimentation yet to do I started with the suggested firing schedule, but will tweak as time goes on.

Another thing that I don't know is whether subsequent firings affect the colour after it has fused the first time. This took 5 firings, 1 to fuse the two pieces of Tekta to get the right thickness, 2 for the black & red poppy flowers and blue cornflowers, 3 for the green stems and more red (to try and compensate for the muddy 1st red), 4 for the green & blue background and 5 to slump. *phew*

There's also a possibility that the black and red flowed together causing the murkiness - maybe they should have been separate firings as well.

Right, I'm off to try something else now...

I like the cool colour palette. How big is it?

My goodness Elaine that's a fair few firings but as long as each one is progressively slower than the last one all should be well from what I have read.

Would forward planning of the colours work a bit better, i.e leaving the slower flowing ones till last.

What did you use to bind the powder?

Still think it a brilliant 1st attempt.

Hi Pru, It's 7.5cm square.

Lynne, you have to do the layers in the order from foreground to background (when painting on the bottom) rather than by the flowing temp for the colours, because more recent layers are hidden by the previous ones.

For painting on the top of a piece, reverse the order. Maybe I'll try that soon.

Mead Moon wrote:

Lynne, you have to do the layers in the order from foreground to background (when painting on the bottom) rather than by the flowing temp for the colours, because more recent layers are hidden by the previous ones.

For painting on the top of a piece, reverse the order. Maybe I'll try that soon.

Oh I see, good luck.

Thats Fab! Loving the effect and colours on the glass.
Did you find these easier to use than the Glassline pens?

Fusional Zen wrote:Thats Fab! Loving the effect and colours on the glass.
Did you find these easier to use than the Glassline pens?

Thank you! That's an interesting question... I find the bottles that the Glassline pigments come in really difficult to squeeze, so I end up with shaky lines and blobby bits instead of nice smooth lines. I've tried with a paint brush, but they do tend to spread a bit, and the gold one almost disappears on firing. On the other hand, they can be included between two sheets of glass, which I'm not sure whether you can do with enamels, and the fusing can be done at the same time as firing the paints. I also like using the "bubble" ones for extra effect.

The enamels don't spread, but have to be fired separately, i.e. fuse the glass first, then use the enamels, and the firing temp seems to be more critical.

I'll need to use them both a lot more before deciding which I prefer. If using a paint brush and painting on the top of a piece, I expect they're much the same. Would also like to try the Glassline chalk.