As a kid my mom would tell me stories of palaces and forts in places like Agra and Jaipur but instead of focusing on the prince- princess part, she would talk to me about architecture and ornamentation. Years later, at the age of 12, on my first trip to Agra and Jaipur I fell in love with inlaid stones, marble and enamelling (meenakari) and the stories I heard before started to come to life.
I have been enthralled with the richness and smoothness of colour that meenakari gives jewelry and I have tried more than once to find tutors who would teach and have failed. But after every such attempt, I would ask myself if I could do such fine, precise work and even if I could, did I want to do it? I realised that I wanted something more organic, something that would flow and merge without being held down by conventional rules. I wanted a medium that would resonate with my free spirited nature and after a lot of search I discovered iced enamelling when I found Relique powders.
Before moving on into the technique let me give you a bit of background here. I came across the Iced Enamelling process in 2013 via videos and was fascinated. As it was a bit expensive then, I let it go. Then in 2014, as fate would have it, I became a part of the Ice resin Creative team and was soon sent Iced enamels relique powders to try.
What is iced enamelling
Iced enamelling is the process of using ICED enamel relique powders to color metal in a fun way. Though it comes under cold enamelling process (which requires the use of neither the kiln nor the torch), it does require a little heat to fully form. There are 14 available colors out of which three are glitz metallic (fine glitter), three are matt metallic and the rest are solid colors. Watch the video by Sun Lenart Kazmer for a simple DIY
Materials required for iced enamelling
Apart from the Relique powders, you will also require a bottle of Enamels Medium, a heat gun, a tile to work with, a two part epoxy resin (preferably Ice resin) and ofcourse the metal piece that you want to enamel. It is interesting to note that though enamelling is a technique that is commonly associated with metal and the powders have been specifically developed for this purpose, they also work well with a resin or a plastic base. I did try this technique in my Nouveau roses necklace‘s pendant which won the ABS monthly challenge for Art beads. The butterflies and leaves shown in this post were made by participants in my recent resin workshops. Aren’t they pretty sweet?
The Jugaad method
If you do not have a heat gun, you can heat an iron skillet or tawa ( iron Dosa kal is the best), on a stove, lay a piece of silver foil on it and then put your dry metal pieces with the powder on it. Unlike the heat gun process which takes anywhere from 30s to 3 minutes, the stove method literally takes a few seconds and you have to watch over the pieces very carefully. I did a lot of experiments using the stove technique (I didnt have a heat gun until a couple of months back) and I failed a lot more than I succeed. But I learnt how to do it right. So if you want to try Iced enamelling in a painless way, please use a heat gun. I recommend the Ranger’s heat it craft tool as its cheap yet good but Americans should check the version to make sure that you are getting is with plugs that will fit your socket as the one that I use and recommend is the European 220V version (perfect for Indian sockets).
Tips – use as little medium as required (less is more in case of the stove route). If you use more medium it will just bubble, boil over and spoil the entire piece. With other heat guns and stove, the piece needs to be completely dry before you heat it. You can, however, continue to apply medium on the powder if you are using the Heat it heat gun to achieve the desired result.
Iced enamelling is a super fun, mixed media technique and I encourage all of you to try. I’ll share a very interesting tutorial using this technique, next week. Until then, Do share yours favourite resin or enamel tips and tricks or questions in the comments.
I hope you found it interesting
Cheers
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