Jewelry Shop Talk

What could be more fun than making jewelry all day long?

Making jewelry all day long for five days in a row!

Yes, you can. Plan your next vacation (or “staycation,” as the case may be) for June 20-24, 2011 (M-F) at Danaca Design and you will learn new skills, hone old ones, and make new friends. What could be better?

The Intermediate Jewelry Making: Total Immersion class allows you to live and breathe metalsmithing, to gain confidence and move your skills to a new level. Plus, you are sure to come away with a completed piece (or pieces) you can be proud of. Instructor Dana Cassara cultivates a learning atmosphere that invites creativity, curiosity, and even a bit of risk taking (with design, that is).  Give me a week of jewelry making over a spa vacation any day!

Visit www.danacadesign.com to learn more.

Visit our Facebook page to see more photos from last year’s intermediate immersion class.

After you finish the first firing, you realize the possibilities are endless. Vibrant and shiny, layered and rich, enameling opens the door to incorporating color and texture into jewelry. Sift fine powdered glass, or apply wet pack (the powder with just a tiny bit of water) on to a treated (aka sticky) surface and the process has just begun. The talented enamelist, Linnie Kendrick, who recently taught Kiln Fire Enameling Basics at Danaca Design, knows how excited students get. She has to reign in her students to keep them from “going crazy” during the first part of the class. Once the basics – working cleanly, surface preparation, kiln safety, sequencing – are understood the fun really takes off. Students experiment with layering color, stenciling designs (using anything from lace to traditional stencils), and sgraffito.* Sgraffito unleashes the delight of removing enamel before subsequent firing in the kiln to reveal underlying layers of color. Think scratch board but with metal and enamel. This one day class leaves students eager for more. Perhaps a two-day class? Enameling night, anyone?

*Sgraffito and sgraffiti come from the Italian word sgraffiare (“to scratch”), ultimately from the Greek γράφειν (gráphein) “to write”.  -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgraffito