Spring Workshop: Charity Hall
Charity Hall will teach a three day workshop April 5-7, 2019 at Glen Echo National Park in Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, DC. The class will focus on drawing and painting in enamels. Registration opens January 27, 2019. Go to www.glenechopark.org, or call the registrar at 301-634-2226. Email sarapaulson@gmail.com with any questions.
A description follows:
Using powdered glass and copper as your palette, explore the art of painting in enamel. Best of all, you don’t need to know how to draw or paint! We will apply freeform brush strokes and watercolor techniques to create colorful images using a variety of materials. Unlock the secrets of kiln firing and apply these techniques to make objects d’art from jewelry sized pieces to small bowls or tiles.
There are many ways to paint on enamel. In this workshop, we will cover a variety of materials in depth. Thompson watercolor enamels are a fun, beginner-friendly product to quickly add color. Although firing watercolor enamels can seem finicky, we will explore this in a step-by-step format to maximize their potential, adding fine line details and final finishing with textured transparent overlays.
Mason stains are pigments that are commonly used to color everything from ceramic glazes to concrete. When mixed with flux and a binding agent, mason stains offer the enamelist an endless array of brilliant color that resists burning out in subsequent firings. This means that you can fire these over and over again without losing the color saturation from previous firings. We will explore both painting and sgraffito with mason stains as well as combining with other products, such as fine line underglaze black.
Details are what truly makes a piece pop. Great attention will be given to hone skills, such as applying underglaze black to achieve the finest possible line quality and examining different methods to create final surface finishes, from glossy and clear to transparent matte.
The class will use liquid enamel to create freeform drawings in sgrafitto, and will also investigate how to apply the sgrafitto technique to other materials, including watercolor enamels, mason stains and underglaze black to refine and adjust imagery and line quality.
National Enamelist Guild 