Wednesday 18 January 2012

Light and Space

Part of the reason I have been so madly busy lately is that we have been preparing for an exhibition as part of the current module at uni.  The exhibition is called Light and Space and features work from all the second year applied arts students, so there is ceramics and jewellery/metalwork on display as well as glass.  It is on at Theatr Clwyd in Mold for the next month - find the details here - all welcome!

For my pieces for the exhibition I have been working on incorporating images into glass blocks.  The images I am using are taken from some of my collagraph prints, recreated as screen prints and printed onto the glass.  I've then been layering up the glass and fusing it together.  The next step is to trim the sides of the block - here is a block-in-progress.


As you can see, the trimmed side does not have that nice clear 'glassy' look to it... it takes a LOT of polishing to get it back to that state.  And it's very easy to chip corners and edges during the polishing process.  And each block has four sides and eight corners... you get the picture!  I still need to iron out a few problems, the kiln temperature is not quite right yet, and the polishing needs more practise (probably not being in a rush would help!) but I'm getting there.



Light and Space

You can see the rest of my pieces here on my Flickr.

9 comments:

  1. I enjoyed looking at these on flickr, you are developing so many new skills during your course. Is the world ready for you? Have fun at the exhibition!

    ReplyDelete
  2. that is really neat :D never thought about printing onto glass before

    ReplyDelete
  3. They look fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Helen - these are truly remarkable and beautiful. Simple, elegant and evocative all at once, and they belie the amount of sweat that has gone into them - like ballet dancers who make it look so beautiful and easy. So much polishing and sanding - but my, it's worth the effort.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Helen,
    These are absolutely beautiful. When will they be in your shop?
    Erin

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Erin - as I said, I need to work on the process, carefully angled photographs are great for hiding little chips and imperfections ;-) So it will be while before I have any for sale but I'm working on it!

      Delete
  6. Thank you all for your lovely comments, it;s great to feel that I'm on the right track with these!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Helen, I just thought I'd let you know that I have given your blog a Liebster blog award at http://slightlytriangleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/liebster-blog-award.html :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Chloe! As you can probably tell I am a bit behind with all things bloggy at the moment - I will try to pass it on when I can!

      Delete

Helen Smith, artist and maker in glass, print and stitch.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails