The end of our BA course is fast approaching and my fellow students are suffering trauma with cracking and breaking glass. It seems that this time of year arrives so fast and then everyone's work goes haywire as the pressure mounts. Its as if the glass has a mind of its own and refuses to do our bidding!
I have this week to finish the Kiln work, and then masses of cold working awaits. Thats if the kiln work goes according to plan. A fused piece is in one kiln to be slumped as I write, everything crossed that it works out, not time to go back to the drawing board now. It has been a weird term as too many holidays and Bank holidays, too many days when college was closed.
The College degree show is just over two weeks away, then the following week we are off to London for New Designers 2011 at the Business Design Centre in Upper Street, Islington. New Designers is like the oscars for the Applied Arts, so a big thing, not to be missed. Also Islington is one of my favourite parts of the metropolis, which I miss so much. It will be so good to see the old city again, its been a long time since I left.
This is a series of pictures of various stages of my work. The top image is a piece of silk screen printed glass ready to go in the kiln. This is Degussa high fire glass enamel, silk screened by myself. The Degussa enamels come in low and high temperature firing varieties. Because I am fusing and slumping the enamels have to go in the kiln several times, therefore it was imperative to use the high fire enamels to keep the colour and sharpness throughout the processes. Degussa enamels are supplied by Pearsons Glass London, I include the link as they are an excellent company to deal with.
The middle image is of my test piece, three layers of screened enamels fused together and slumped into a bowl shape. The glass used is Bullseye Tektra 3mm. I would have used float but I dislike the green tinge that comes with it. Tektra has a textured finish, which as a side effect produces slight bubbles between the layers when fused, which I like. It adds little pin points of light!
The last image is showing the portion of the screen used for the first image. I produced the patterns using Adobe Illustrator. I really love using Photoshop and Illustrator and incorporating that with silk screening. Even though it takes some time getting the images enamelled onto the glass as perfectly as possible, and can be frustrating, as with many processes, the end result is well worth it I feel.
I have this week to finish the Kiln work, and then masses of cold working awaits. Thats if the kiln work goes according to plan. A fused piece is in one kiln to be slumped as I write, everything crossed that it works out, not time to go back to the drawing board now. It has been a weird term as too many holidays and Bank holidays, too many days when college was closed.
The College degree show is just over two weeks away, then the following week we are off to London for New Designers 2011 at the Business Design Centre in Upper Street, Islington. New Designers is like the oscars for the Applied Arts, so a big thing, not to be missed. Also Islington is one of my favourite parts of the metropolis, which I miss so much. It will be so good to see the old city again, its been a long time since I left.
This is a series of pictures of various stages of my work. The top image is a piece of silk screen printed glass ready to go in the kiln. This is Degussa high fire glass enamel, silk screened by myself. The Degussa enamels come in low and high temperature firing varieties. Because I am fusing and slumping the enamels have to go in the kiln several times, therefore it was imperative to use the high fire enamels to keep the colour and sharpness throughout the processes. Degussa enamels are supplied by Pearsons Glass London, I include the link as they are an excellent company to deal with.
The middle image is of my test piece, three layers of screened enamels fused together and slumped into a bowl shape. The glass used is Bullseye Tektra 3mm. I would have used float but I dislike the green tinge that comes with it. Tektra has a textured finish, which as a side effect produces slight bubbles between the layers when fused, which I like. It adds little pin points of light!
The last image is showing the portion of the screen used for the first image. I produced the patterns using Adobe Illustrator. I really love using Photoshop and Illustrator and incorporating that with silk screening. Even though it takes some time getting the images enamelled onto the glass as perfectly as possible, and can be frustrating, as with many processes, the end result is well worth it I feel.
