tching!

I took this rather lovely thing out of the kiln on Monday.  It was quite cool to the touch and survived being cleaned up with no problem.  But the kiln shelf underneath must have been warmer than I thought and the sudden change in temperature shocked the glass; because as it has been sitting on the desk beside me, every so often I hear little 'tching' noises as it has gradually started to crack... you can see the biggest crack in the bottom left hand corner but there are others all up that side. Aah, the joys of working with glass!

So this piece is destined to be used in a 'what if' type experiment.

Whereas the piece below is from a different firing and is behaving itself; at least I managed to get one piece finished and framed up.  Better go and cut up some more glass!

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!)

Finding my way

Isn't it funny how trying just one thing can suddenly make everything fall into place? And about time too you might say, as I am very nearly at the end of my degree course.

In the first year of the course I fell in love with collagraph printing. Creating the plates; the way the ink echoed the texture of the plate and the unpredictability of the print itself; the variations in the strength of the marks; everything.

Ever since then I have, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, been trying to replicate that effect in glass.

First I tried copying the images I had created from the collagraphs and screenprinting them onto the glass.  That worked, up to a point, but for me the screenprinting process meant that the images lost the essential sense of texture that they had as prints on paper.  They were just too definite, too clean.

Then I tried creating plaster moulds in the same way that I create collagraph plates and casting the glass in these moulds.

So far the results of this have been somewhat unpredictable. I dare say if I pursue it, eventually I will get it to work as I want, but it is a time consuming process, and also one which uses a lot of expensive glass frit.  I have also realised that to do this I will have to get used to using more robust materials to create my textures; both to stand up to the mould making process and to create definite enough marks on the glass; and I'm not sure that I want to change my materials so much.

But then the other day I had one of those 'I haven't tried that' moments and these little printed strips were the result.

They may not look much but I am very excited about them.  The print on the back of the glass was taken from one of my collagraph prints; the glass was laid on top of it in the kiln and has 'picked up' the image, but in a much more interesting and sketchy way than a direct screenprint.  There is just enough texture on the back of the glass; I can see endless possibilities in these two little strips of glass...

At last, some glass

It seems I start every post by apologising for not posting more often, which is a bit daft really.  But now I have a couple of weeks off for Easter so I can catch up with  all  some of the things I haven't had time to do lately.

So I thought you might like to see some pictures of what I've been working on at uni lately.  Our last module required us to produce a 'marketable product' within a certain price bracket and to research selling venues and produce marketing material and so on.  I rather enjoyed this module, I got to do some maths as well as some making.

My design idea was to produce a range of textured dishes on a textile related theme.  Opting to work with texture rather than colour was quite challenging as I had to hand make moulds for each of my designs but I really wanted to see whether I could do it quickly enough to produce something affordable.

The textures are from some beautiful vintage Indian printing blocks I have.  Once I had made the moulds I started off working with float/window glass.  I like the way the green tint of the glass works with the texture, and it has the advantage of not being so horribly expensive that mistakes are a disaster.

 

This one was supposed to be the same rectangular shape as the other but due to a rather messy leak the plaster mould was too thin and snapped in half.  So I went ahead and used the broken half a mould and I think it works rather nicely as a square - this one was a happy accident!

Having proved that the moulds worked fine with float glass, I really really wanted to use coloured glass.  We're getting more expensive now!  Unfortunately the glass behaves quite differently from float glass and needs a completely different firing programme and although everyone had an idea, nobody really knew what programme I should be using.

Cue quite a few disasters (and remember we're using the expensive stuff...).  First we went too hot and ended up with sharp points on the edges, and pulled edges, and a hole where the glass had bubbled and burst.  Unfortunately there were 3 of these :(

Although,  some parts are really lovely so I am hoping to be able to cut away the dodgy bits and do something with the remainder.

Then we went too cold and had to try again... and when we did it was too hot again!

Finally, more by luck than judgement, we got it right...

So now I know the firing programme to use for this particular glass provided I fire it at the right hand end of that particular kiln... don't ever let anyone tell you glass is an easy medium to work with!

But I am so pleased with the result it was definitely worth the ups and downs.  And more importantly, I developed an efficient and cost-effective method of making the moulds I need.

So, finally the acid test, I'll be listing some of the dishes in my etsy shop next week and I'll find out whether I really did come up with a marketable design!

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.

Platemaking

I have been madly busy this week trying to get on with the practical part of our first assignment of the term.  Between a team of us we have to produce an 8 place table setting.  That's 8 of everything.  I'm making plates.  8 of them.

I have been working my way through the casting process I want to use, finding out what works and what doesn't.  It's quite a long winded process; first make a clay form of the plate...

...then make a plaster mould of the clay form, carefully clean out all the little bits of clay left behind and wait several days for it to be dry enough to use.

Drill the base of the mould full of holes to let the air escape during casting, and place in the kiln. Cut 2 circles of glass and place in the mould in the kiln. Cook overnight, keeping fingers crossed. And if I'm very lucky the result will be a glass plate with no lumpy bubbles (glass is so hard to photograph)...

Repeat. With a bit of luck, and if it is not moved, a mould can be used 2 or 3 times before it really starts to crumble.

2 down, 6 to go!

A decision?

As you probably know, the degree course I am on requires you to choose a specialism - the choice is Ceramics, Jewellery/Metalwork or Glass.  Very very difficult!  When I started I was fairly sure that I would choose metalwork and go on to combine it with my textile work.

But then I discovered that working in glass can give you all the elements of texture and layering that I love to play with in my textile work, and I was hooked!

This week we have been doing low-relief casting in the kiln, creating moulds by cutting up pieces of fibre blanket to give form and texture.  We layered cut pieces of fibre blanket and sheets of float (window) glass - if the pieces of blanket go right to the edge you can put them between the sheets of glass  to create gaps too.

My design all layered up and nearly ready to go - the edges just need to be trimmed.

In the kiln, surrounded by pieces of kiln shelf to keep it in place.

And this is how it came out!

Now, I didn't have this in mind when I designed the piece, but isn't it perfect?

Warm Glass

I know I have absolutely failed in my aim to keep people up to date with what I am doing at Uni via this blog - I am sorry!  My only excuse is that I have been madly busy... of course... what did I expect?

Anyway, today I have finally managed to take the all important photographs of what I've been up to so I can bring you up to date. 

We have been divided into groups and each group has spent 2 weeks in each of the 3 departments; glass, ceramics and jewellery/metalwork.  My first 2 weeks were spent in the glass department.  We mainly looked at casting glass and the various ways of making moulds for this - it's a pretty slow process!  Here are my cast pieces... they are still a bit rough around the edges and need a bit more smoothing and polishing up.  They don't have the lovely shiny surface you get with hot glass, the effect is more like sea glass - which of course is a favourite of mine!

This piece was made from recycled broken pieces of blown glass - I carefully selected mostly clear pieces and just a few pieces with the odd flash of colour, and I'm really pleased with the effect I got.  I was worried that the colours might all mix together and give me a lump of brown glass...

This next piece was made by layering purple and then clear casting glass into the mould.

These last pieces were made from smashed up window glass - a different effect entirely.

I also got to have a go at sandblasting - that was great fun and the results much more immediate.