More glass... and some knitting

This week I have been attracting attention by sitting in the canteen at uni knitting with wire. Having previously related mostly to textiley people this seemed a perfectly normal activity to me (along with setting fire to things in the car park and wrapping up any old stuff I find...) but as there isn't a textiles course at my uni this simple act seemed to be a huge novelty to most people!

Having knitted my wire I then attacked it with scissors and deconstructed it a bit, and layered it up with scraps of float glass something like this ------>

This picture was taken on the workbench so by the time I'd transferred all the bits to the kiln it wasn't quite the same, but near enough.

A bit of guess work with the kiln program (it always is) meant that the result was flatter and less 'lumpy' than I intended but I was thrilled with the way the wire reacted and with the texture the glass picked up underneath.  I hope you're ready to look through loads of pictures now...  To give you an idea of scale they are each about 30cm tall.

And one without wire just to see...

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!

Eco Daisies Workshop

For my local readers (I know there are a few of you!), I will be giving a workshop on making flowers from plastic bags at the Green Community Shop & Centre in Oxton, Wirral on 10th March.

The workshop is for accompanied children (age 7-8+); it is a drop in workshop with no need to book, and best of all it is FREE!  So if you're in the area do come along.  (While the workshop is aimed at children, provided we have enough equipment available, I won't be stopping the adults from joining in if they would like to!)

These are what we will be making...

Plastic Bag Flower Making Workshop

Saturday 10th March 1pm - 3:30pm

at

The Green Community Shop & Centre

49-51 Christchurch Road

Oxton 

Wirral CH43 5SF 

Drop in workshop for accompanied children aged 7-8+

FREE - no need to book

All materials will be supplied, but if you have a daisy loom do bring it along.  And if you have any particularly pretty plastic carrier bags - the thin supermarket type bags are best - then bring them along too.  Look forward to seeing you there!

The workshop is one of a series being sponsored by the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority - do take a look to see if there is anything else you might be interested in.

 

Playng with glass

I'm definitely an absent blogger at the moment, too much to do, not enough hours in the day, you know how it is.  Here is a sneak peak at what I'm working on at the moment...

It's a complicated process involving much mould making; this one only worked in part so we cut off the bits that didn't.  It's now about the size of a soap dish and rather lovely, though I say it myself!  Just need to polish up those edges now, without chipping it...

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.

I'm still here!

Oh dear, I have been neglecting my blog!  I hope you have all had a lovely peaceful Christmas and that the new year has started well.

As you've probably gathered, things have been rather busy here.  I had a great first half of December in my shops, and then I closed up while we escaped to Florida for Christmas and New Year.  After staying at home last summer (summer? what summer?) it was so lovely to be somewhere warm.

We've been back for a while and I am over the jetlag but coming up to assessment at uni so madly busy there!  There will be some photos of glass soon, I promise.

I did have a lovely surprise the other day when the lovely Julie of Moaning Minnie (she makes fab hats!) spotted my ffflowers in Wedding magazine.  Do you remember this article in Wedding Flowers magazine in the summer?  It seems they have reprinted it in another of their magazines - an unexpected bonus!

Inspiration

No time for blogging lately I'm afraid, for I have been gadding around too much.

First I went to see the Lost in Lace exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Galleries.  Oh, it was wonderful to see so many large pieces displayed in such a big airy space.  I recommend absolutely everyone to go and see it if you possibly can; I'm hoping to go again.

Cosmos Series by Naomi Kobayashi 2011
For many of the pieces the shadows seemed to me to be an integral part.

The Birmingham Museum and Art Galleries is a rather lovely place too; upstairs from Lost in Lace were pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard, beautifully detailed pieces of Anglo-Saxon gold work.  And a very nice restaurant too.

A couple of days after that I was fortunate to be able to attend a workshop and talk given by textile artist Matthew Harris.  The talk was a fascinating insight into his inspiration and way of working and it was lovely to see pieces of his work 'in the flesh' too.  Textile work really does lose something when you only see it in photographs. 

In the afternoon we worked with abstract drawings, folding and tearing them to create new designs.  I seemed to end up quite mappy again, at least in the piece on the left - some little scraps of collagraph prints have crept in there too.  It was a great way of working; all in all the day was very inspiring.

And last but not least I took my son down to London to see the Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Tate Modern.  Wow!  Another absolutely stunning exhibition, well worth a visit.  Son was so taken with it that I treated him to a large and expensive poster, and he is now redecorating his room to make it a suitable place to hang it!!!  How I wish I had thought of this before...

But I think I shall stay home for a while now...