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.
