This is an in-depth tutorial on Plique-à-Jour techniques which shows in comprehensive detail and easy to follow steps:
- - Making four enameled jewelry pieces
- - Acid problems with enameling
- - Repairing Plique-à-Jour
- This tutorial can be made in a standard smithing workshop. You will need:
- - Metal : silver or gold or other
- - Torch firing and enameling kiln
- - Enamels
You will receive :
- -- 100 Pictures and illustrations
- -- 54 Pages of detailed instructions
- -- 3 Templates of the Daisy Pendants and the Fairy Wings
- -- Personalized tips on tools and techniques
Plique-a-jour enameling is essentially miniature stained glass. Except the artist gets to melt his own glass. To do this, one has to master some very important basics and build skills up from there.
Plique-a-jour enameling dates back to the 6th century.
It is the most difficult of all the closed cell enameling techniques.
This technique's secrets have always been jealously guarded by those accomplished in it. The result was a loss of knowledge and very little guidance in teaching and passing on of this technique.
This enameling Plique-à-jour tutorial lays the foundation for your technique. As with any technique, it is always the basics that are the most important. Everything builds up from there.
In this enameling course you will get to make all four jewelry pieces seen in the first picture, to cover a well-rounded base of skills. First the daisy disk pendant is made. Then you move on to the daisy outline pendant and progress to the three dimensional Plique-à-Jour curves followed by experimental Plique-à-Jour.. Also the important aspect of acid problems and repairing enameled cells is explained.
Now that you have the basics under your belt and with practice and experimentation you will then be able to make complex plique-a-jour jewelry like the above examples also illustrated in this tutorial.
