Etched and Enamelled Silver Hamsa in Turquoise

I made this for my mum's birthday, so in case she's reading this - Happy Birthday mum! I'll give it to you later :-)

It was my first attempt at enamelling on etched silver - also the etching is done in two stages because I wanted the design to be underneath the enamel - a Basse-Taille technique. First I etched the frame, then I painted on the design in stop-out fluid and put it back to etch some more. Fiddly but it seemed to work.

It's quite small, measuring just over an inch from the bottom to the top of the bail. I hope she likes it!

Etched Silver and Enamel Hamsa in Turquoise

Smallish hamsa pendant, enamelled silver

Some hours later...

I think I'm done with testing enamel on copper. At least for now. I'm not falling in love with the results, although the test are really valuable for experience. I love transparent colours, which don't look particularly good on copper. I'll just have to resolve myself to the fact that I'll probably make some expensive mistakes - and continue my experiments on silver.

So here are the very last of the etched copper pieces:

White Bear on Purple Background

This is weird in many ways...

Here is a silver test piece I was working on - etched the same time as the hamsa: I tried a bit of blending here (left hand side - blue into purple) - the dark patch on the right hand corner is what happens when you enamel over solder. I thought I had cleaned it up - not enough apparently.

This is the kind of effect that I love - transparent colour over pattern (Basse-Taille)
- so this technique is what I'll be trying to perfect.