Thursday, June 30, 2011

Painting with FIRE!


This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending an enameling workshop taught by Barbara Lewis of Painting with Fire. Her work is stunning and what a great teacher too! She supplied us with everything we needed to make lots of pretty enameled beads. We were a rowdy group of ladies working with some serious heat!

I learned so many techniques with Barbara and quickly lost my fear of having a torch sitting right in front of me.
I have taken one other class in metal jewelry before this and it was also with a fantastic teacher, Stephanie Lee of Homesteaders Metalsmithing. I think by using what I have learned in both classes I will be able to come up with some cute gifts for friends and family, you know its never too early to prepare for the holidays;)!

Barbara Lewis has a great blog with fabulous pictures and tutorials. She also sells all of the materials necessary to get you started on enameling. Also her book will be out soon, you can preview some of it on her site or at amazon.
A sample of Barbara's work from her book:

My workstation:
Here's a picture of the studio:
My beads:
I hope you all have a safe and wonderful 4th of July!!!!!
Rosanna