Cloisonné Enamel

The Enamel Club are running a Cloisonné Enamel class at Coburg House Art Studios over the weekend of Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 November. It's a full-on weekend workshop, so you'll need to clear both days: Saturday from 10:00 to 16:00, with a 45-minute break, and Sunday from 10:00 to 13:00. The studio is at 15 Coburg Street in Leith, EH6 6ET.

If you're not familiar with the technique, cloisonné comes from the French cloison, meaning 'partition'. You work with thin ribbons of silver or gold and colourful enamels to build a design. The metal ribbons are fused onto a base layer of enamel to form small cells that hold the coloured glass, and the wire stays visible so the patterns shine through. It's a slow, precise way of working, and the result is a piece of enamel with the metal lines built right into the surface.

Over the two days, you'll take a design from start to finish. You'll prepare the enamel base, shape and inlay the wires, wet-pack the cells with enamel, and finish by grinding and kiln-polishing. The Enamel Club runs the whole thing, with tutoring and demonstrations at every stage, so you're not just left to figure it out on your own. The fee covers all your materials, enamels and equipment, so you don't need to bring your own kit.

It's best suited to people with some previous enamelling experience, but if you're a newcomer, they ask that you email first to have a chat about it. The session is for ages 16 and over. If you've got the weekend free and want to get a proper piece of cloisonné finished, it's a good one to get in the diary.