email: gillie@byroms.co.uk

www.enamelportraitminiatures.co.uk

Gillie Hoyte Byrom is one of the few established artists painting miniatures in vitreous enamel. Each of her portraits has been fired in a kiln at least a dozen times to fuse the glass enamel to a gold or copper base. As a result the colours never fade, creating a jewel-like heirloom to be treasured for generations. Gillie mainly works to commission. Her miniatures range in size from 1 – 12 cm and include contemporary and historical subjects. She works direct from life, from photographs and from video to create a likeness.

Gillie began enamelling in 1977 and was largely self-taught until 1990 when she went to Barcelona to learn the painting of portrait miniatures in vitreous enamel. These specialist techniques, as practised in the eighteenth century, involve firing each miniature in a kiln at about 750°C a dozen times or more, gradually modeling the portrait in vitreous enamel paint, using the finest miniaturist’s brushes and fusing the glass metal oxide pigments at each firing.

Gillie has been a member of the British Society of Enamellers since 1986 and is a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers; the Hilliard Society of Miniaturists; and the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, exhibiting her miniatures regularly. She has won many national and international awards, including the Jacques Cartier Memorial Award in 2007. 

Copyright © 2003. The images shown on this page may not be reproduced without the permission of the artist.

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