Round Peg In A Square Hole
Bead Journal Project

2010 - January - Sgraffito Enameling

January started the BJP for this year. In addition to the enamel, I have used ribbon embroidery (having dyed my own ribbon), glass beads, cats eye beads and metal bead and spacers.

The enamel uses a technique called Sgraffito - the scratching through a raw layer of enamel (before it's fired). In Sgraffito, you can use the negative image (which is what this one does) or the positive image (which is what November's piece is about). In this case, I had a base of white enamel. The layer that was scratched through was a liquid enamel. The dots in the butterfly were added after the sgraffito was done. This also incudes flower wafers and gold foil bits. The top is an underfired layer of clear which gives it a grainy, matte finish.

Roll your mouse over the image to see a close up of the enamel.