Drawing & Mark Making on Enamel with Andrew Thornton

Andrew Thornton is leading a workshop on drawing and mark making on enamel at Contemporary Craft on Saturday, October 24. It's a full-day session, running from 10 AM to 5 PM, held in the Metals Studio of the Raphael Building at 5645 Butler Street. The workshop is part of the Metals/Jewellery collection, and it's geared toward two kinds of people: 2D artists who want to get their work onto jewelry, and anyone who already works with enamel and wants their pieces to stand out.

If you're coming from a painting or drawing background, this is a way to move your work onto a different surface. Enameling is essentially fusing powdered glass to metal with heat, and Thornton's focus here is on the mark making—the lines, shapes, and gestures you can build on top of that glass. It's about treating the enamel as a ground for drawing rather than just a flat field of color.

Contemporary Craft is a Pittsburgh-based organization that works across ceramics, fiber, glass, metal, and wood, and this workshop sits right in their Metals/Jewellery wheelhouse. They also run the 'Pittsburgh is Craft' initiative, which aims to bring the city's craft community to the forefront and promote Pittsburgh as a national and international craft destination. Beyond workshops, they offer open studio rentals and group programs, and they produce the 'Sounds from the Studio' podcast series.

The session is $105 plus a $30 materials fee, and all materials are provided, so you don't need to bring your own kit. It runs from 10 AM to 5 PM on Saturday, October 24, at the Raphael Building, 5645 Butler Street.