Basse-taille
“Gull Feather”, basse-taille enamel on copper, with glass stain colors. 7” x 4”. Dark areas represent high points in the etched copper and were enameled with black first. The light areas were filled later. Glass stain colors were applied last.
Basse-taille (“boss-TIE”) uses etched patterns in metal, but differs from champlevé in how the metal is treated.
In champlevé, the enamel is ground off the high points and bare metal is always left showing. In basse-taille, all the metal is covered with enamel.
Etching for “Fern Spores”, ready to be enameled - darker areas have been etched to receive light enamels in the finished piece
Often the enamel is transparent so that the etched pattern can be seen below the surface. “Fern Spores” uses white in the recesses, with the whole piece covered in transparent glass.
“Fern Spores”, basse-taille enamel on copper. 9” x 6”. White enamel was applied first and overfired to turn green in small areas. Transparent enamel was applied last so that the oxidized bare copper turned red.
“Salt Point Tafoni #1”, four tiles of basse-taille enamel on copper, with glass stain colors. Unlike my champlevé Salt Point pieces, the dark areas here are also enameled. 18” x 12”
Basse-taille can sometimes be a much easier process to control than champlevé because the glass doesn’t discolor as much. It can also be much less time consuming because the stoning process is eliminated. But the “cleanup” between firings took many hours, and the results are not as “three dimensional” and luminous as champlevé.