Does anyone know how to make silver foil on a copper base, have an extra crinkly/textured appearance? almost like its been scrunched into a ball and smoothed out? I plan on covering the whole copper base with silver foil for cloisonné. It’s a texture I’ve seen beneath the cloisonné of some beautiful pieces and I’d love to be able to do it. This is a snippet of what I mean:
Hello
This could be a process known as silver reticulation. A series of annealing’s & quenching in water/pickle which ends bringing the pure silver to the surface and creating a wrinkle effect on your substrate. Usually a 80%ag/20%cu alloy works best but I have seen people use regular sterling sheet as well. You can you tube the process for more information and process.
I’ve messaged you @Poodlepup3 as I don’t know if I’m allowed to share peoples Instagram profiles here, although the ones I’ve seen are open to the public on Instagram.
I’m familiar with reticulation and this looks a bit different to that, although that could definitely be another way to achieve the effect! Thank you.
I think your photo is the thicker Japanese foil, embossed or tooled.
Start with a fired liquid enamel base, then the textured foil, fire, and the enamel will fill the raised areas.
The finished project needs lots of layers of enamel.
Thank you for your help @Betty2 It’s much appreciated.
Once I had the terminology (embossing foil) I was able to find some information in a book online. For anyone that’s interested the book is called, ‘The Art of Enameling: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration’ by Linda Darty (pages 80-84). It’s very thorough on the subject of silver and gold foil.
Just a note about Karen Cohen’s re-issue and updated The Art of Fine Enameling. It’s just out and has a very thorough coverage of gold and silver foils, including Ginbari foil, which permits foil to be embossed. It’s available on Amazon.