Chameleon Enamel

This project was created in March 2018 for an enamel workshop during my third year at the School of Applied Arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. This workshop, given by the renowned enameler Anita Porchet, introduced me to the craft of enamelling.

First of all, I searched for inspiration on the theme 'chameleon'. After this, I sketched a few ideas before I came up with the final drawing that was ready to be engraved.

The third step was to prepare the gap that will contain the enamel. For this, I lowered the metal with different tools. During this process it is important to keep the bottom flat and very clean but it is possible to create a structure on it when using a semi-transparent enamel.

After this, I started to enamel, which is the main part of the project. In this step I vitrified a type of glass, which serves as decoration, on a metal surface. This glass can be opaque or semi-transparent. For my project I chose an opaque dark red enamel. This process is complicated in which the enameler has to follow a lot of strict steps to have a clean result and to avoid accidents, since the enamel can easily break.

I finished the project by engraving the composition around the chameleon in which I used a few techniques to give different textures to my project. I chiseled around the chameleon and I used a stone to give a blurring effect outside the border.