New Elephant Brooches on Folksy

I’ve just been updating my Folksy Shop with some of my Indian Elephant copper and enamel brooches. I started making these following a visit to India a few years ago. We were travelling around Kerela  in a mini bus when a mahout and his elephant passed us. ‘Stop that elephant’ we told the driver. We were able to get up close to this wonderful elephant and his handler. The elephant was a working animal travelling from plantation to plantation and was quite unlike the tourist elephants I had seen before. He exuded a calm and majestic aura and I was captivated. The colours and patterns are inspired by the women we passed, working in the fields and on tea plantations in their beautiful and vibrant saris. To achieve something of this effect I riso screen a paisley design over the base coat of colour before stencilling on a cover and hat. I then finish with gold or silver lustre. I used to use metal essence, but recently I have been using the carefree lastres from Thomson which gives something of a batik effect which I think works well in this context. I would be interested to know what you think.