The Silver Palace of the Moon

The Silver Palace of the Moon

This is the first in a series of pieces inspired by Russian lacquer boxes which, in turn, are inspired by fairy tales. Often relegated to the status of children’s stories, these archetypal tales have always seemed rich and complex to me. It’s like being in a dream. It is part of a direction I have been taking with my grisaille pieces: adding metallic foils and colour (this was how grisaille developed historically also. It seemed to lend itself to the ethereal Faerie realm…

First I put three coats of opaque black on both front and back. The first thing I had to do was fuse the foil, as it needs a slightly higher temperature than the foil. I fused down the foil, and used under-glaze black to outline my design. I Covered that with a veil thin coat of clear flux, and then added some subtle colour shading with really finely ground (325 mesh) enamel. Only then did I apply the china paint (3 or 4 layers) The final touch was some powdered mica to give the rays of the moon a little sparkle!