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Torched Enamel Ear Wires

A friend had commissioned me to make some earrings out of brass by reclaiming some turquoise from another pair of earrings she had.  I haven't used any brass but I'm sure there is some in the studio waiting to come alive.  Yup, here is some textured brass that came from Thomas Mann's I/O Gallery on Magazine St.  I cut out a disc shape and torched it to calm the shininess of it all.   I had first used liver of sulfur but the color came out this pretty blue (not the color I was hoping for) so I torched it and this is the color it came out.  It brought some of the copper to the surface giving it an antique look.  
Voila!  The finished piece.  Now for the torched enamel ear wires.  This was experiment no. 2.  Experiment 1 was Fall 2010 in metalsmith class.  The enamel kept bouncing off.  But now I got some advice from Barbara Lewis and her group of pyromaniac artists.  The list is a great place for technical support.
I torched enameled red on the balled ends of 20 gauge silver.  Only once did the enamel decide to bounce off the balled end (also melted a few, oops!) but for the most part the enamel stayed on.  Yay!  I made 4 pairs of enameled ear wires today.   
The back side.  

That is it for now.  Have a great Sunday!

♥Kalaya 

(A BIG Thanks to Amber for leading me to the heart symbol...)

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