Drawing the horizon

I'm still plugging away, firing more and more glass strips.  I laid out all the ones I'd done so far this morning.

It's getting there, but not quite what I want yet.  I lined them all up a bit better and added the prints for the next sets of strips to the end and it began to look a bit more like it...

Laying the strips nice and straight rather than a bit haphazard made quite a difference; it's something I'm going to have to take into consideration when I'm fixing them all together.

(Apologies for the poor photographs, it's not easy to find the space to lay them all out, impossible to find somewhere with good lighting as well!)

Something completely different...

Towards the end of April, as part of our course, the final year students will be creating a pop-up gallery/shop in Wrexham, and we are tasked with stocking it with lovely things at affordable prices.  Since the glass  pieces I have been working on are somewhat experimental I wasn't sure that they would be suitable (or finished!) so I have gone back to my first love, textiles, and combined it with my second love, printmaking.

I've used various scraps of trim and edgings, some vintage, some reclaimed and some just 'spare', to make a series of collagraph plates.  It's a great way to use pieces that are too small for much else, and even pieces that are falling apart; they can be 'repaired' when they are glued to the  plate.  All you need to remember when you're making the plates is that you can ignore the colour and just concentrate on the texture.

My idea was to create printed backgrounds from the trims onto which I could add 'real' pieces of trim.  I originally thought I would ink the plates in a brown colour to give that vintage feel, but I didn't really like the results, even the palest colour seemed to overpower the delicate pattern and texture.

So I decided to stick to blind embossing, which is a much quicker and cleaner process without the ink, better all round!  I've been having fun 'auditioning' buttons from my button tin and scraps of trim from my ribbon box and I have finally made some decisions and sewn a few on...  I'm struggling to decide which is my favourite.  What do you think?

The paper size for these prints is just under A5; I think the size works well with the scale of the elements.  I am wondering whether to do some A4 sized ones as well or whether the extra 'bits and pieces' needed to fill the space will make them look too cluttered.

When I'm embossing I nearly always have a few disasters where either the plate or the paper moves and the whole thing ends up crooked.  There's nothing really that can be done with those prints except tear them up, which is ideal for making cards.

I was so pleased with these cards that I made a couple more prints on scraps of paper just so I could make some extra for my Etsy shop; I'll be listing them just as soon as I get some decent photographs.

And if you're anywhere near Wrexham during the week 22nd to 26th April, do pop along to the People's Market to see what other lovely things we have on show.

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.

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

The course begins

T-shirt by TheShirtDudes on Etsy

Well, I have survived Freshers Week relatively unscathed...
I was spared the sudden realisation that I really am 'quite old' that hit some of my fellow mature students - I went through that last year so I already know! I think the worst part of last year was finding my teenage years counted as Art History...

I was pleased to discover that there are quite a few mature students on my course this year and I am not the oldest (although I may well be the second oldest) which is a totally different situation from my foundation course last year.

We spent the week on form-filling and getting-to-know-you team-building type exercises - I have learned a few names, spent a fun day on the beach playing in the sand, discovered that Wrexham people are very friendly and that there are far more shopping centres around the place than I thought!

Lectures proper start on Monday, when the second and third year students also return.  I am looking forward to starting, but anxious to see what the parking will be like with so many more people - I think I may be getting up very early on Monday morning, just in case!

Glyndwr Degree Show

Next September I am off to Glyndwr University in Wrexham to study Applied Arts – mature student, 3 years, full time, not sure if I am mad or not… Applied Arts covers jewellery, ceramics, glass and wood; try everything out first and then decide where to specialise.

So today I went off to visit the degree show to get some idea of what I was letting myself in for – and now I’m really looking forward to it! There was lots of fabulous work in the applied arts room; my favourites were 2 jewellers.

First was Roz Mellor, whose delicate work is inspired by nature and is full of the most beautiful textures. It really has to be seen in person to appreciate the delicacy - I absolutely loved it.

(photographs by the artist)

You can see some more of Roz's work here.

Next was Ruth Baxter who has made beautiful sculptural forms and jewellery from masses of tiny coils of recycled paper – the effect was stunning.

 

(photographs by the artist)

You can see more of Ruth's work here and here.

Having spent some time in the applied arts room I wandered off around the rest of the exhibition. Tucked away in a corner of the illustration degree exhibition I found these wonderful paper birds by Rae Welch.

(photographs by the artist)

Rae’s birds are available in her folksy shop – I had seen them online and it was such a lovely surprise to see them for real!

Roll on September!