Champleve for Dummies

Alright, so "champleve" is a bit of a fancy-sounding word, but I'll try to break it down for you. Imagine you have a piece of metal, like a brass plate, and you want to make a design on it. But instead of just drawing or carving the design, you want to add some colorful enamel to make it really stand out. That's where champleve comes in.

Champleve is a technique used in metalworking where the artist creates hollow areas on the metal surface, and then fills those hollows with enamel to add color and depth to the design. So, it's kind of like making little pools or wells on the metal, and then filling them in with vibrant colors to create a beautiful pattern.

Now, there's another definition of "champleve" that's used in the world of ceramics. In this context, champleve refers to a technique where the artist carves out shallow areas in a ceramic piece, and then fills in those areas with colored glaze before firing it in a kiln. It's a similar idea to the metalworking technique, but applied to pottery instead.

So, whether it's metalworking or ceramics, champleve is all about creating colorful, dimensional designs by adding enamel or glaze to hollowed-out areas on a surface. It's a really cool way to add a pop of color and texture to art and crafts. Hope that helps!