Mixing Glass and Copper

 Glass powder and flux heated from underneath to give a textured finish

 Layer of hot glass, pieces of copper, more glass dropped on top

 Copper wire encapsulated in hot glass

 Copper wire encapsulated in fused glass

 Copper sheet kiln fired with scrap glass pieces and coloured glass powder

Copper sheet kiln fired with glass powder on and to the side of it.

Through my testing I have noticed a familiar theme, which is mixing copper with glass. I think this could be a good theme to take forwards, experimenting more with shaping the copper before it gets put in the glass, and possibly patinating or texturing it after.

Kiln Glass: Fusing

I collected green and orange glass from the hot shop scrap bins (clear glass is recycled but bits with colour are put in a bin which we can use for fusing, casting, slumping etc.) I chose to stick with this colour scheme as these are the colours of moss I have been looking at. I arranged the scraps on a kiln shelf which had been prepared with batt wash to stop the glass sticking, and to give them a smooth back. I arranged the pieces into shapes, and also put some bits of copper under the glass, inbetween layers and on the top, to see how it would react with the glass and the heat of the kiln.

These were just test pieces, but if i wanted to further this technique, I could make specific components in the hot shop, to then fuse together in the kiln. My favourites were the ones I made from the glass powder, as these had a more unpredictable texture, where the powder had melted and separated and left holes and gaps.

The copper worked well, changing colour to give different reds, maroons and black. I could cold work both the glass and copper, to put texture onto the glass or to change the colour of the exposed parts of copper to their original colour.

I feel that some of these pieces are fairly boring, as I controlled them too much. I think the ones that did something unexpected were good, as they made me think about where else I could take it, rather than creating a piece I was expecting.

Drawing: Using mixed media.

This weeks session was linked to last weeks, in that we were using last weeks drawings to create these ones. I chose a small section of my shoe mountain drawing, and drew it a lot bigger on a piece of black paper. I then used mixed media (wire, paint, charcoal, chalk, masking tape, wood, fine liner, cutting out, string) to pick out details and make it more 3D.

These are some close-ups of the drawing.

I drew with coloured fine liner on the blocks of wood, as a contrast to the very big black and white marks the rest of the drawing is made of.

I enjoyed doing this and experimenting mixing media I haven't used together before, but I did get very messy.

Group introductory project.

for our introductory project, Applied arts and fine art (the courses are merged in first year) were split into groups and given the theme 'When nature meets culture'. we brainstormed for a while and decided to make a timeline. One side would start with civilisation and buildings, going from skyscrapers, round to more organic structures like cottages. From the other side, we would start with mountains, to mirror the skyscrapers, and have lots of colours and plants, nature untouched by humans. we decided to link the two sides with water, which is important in both nature and culture, so the nature side had a stream, coming down the mountains and round to the middle, where it met a canal, a man made stream, coming from the culture side. I took pictures of the parts to show the many different styles of drawing that our group created.

 we also used some yarn and origami to make it slightly 3D, to add interest to what would have otherwise been quite a flat piece.

 Other groups, though they had the same starting point, had very different final pieces to ours. i found it very interesting to see the different ways it had been interpreted.