Glasswork: using cold glass.

This week in glass we were doing more work using cold glass. I designed and made a tile from two sheets of glass, with copper wire and copper foil inside for the decoration. I wanted to stay with the nature theme so I cut leaves out, and then used the copper wire and small pieces of copper foil to make it look as though it was windy, like the leaves were being blown about.

i washed and dried the glass sheets carefully, so as to not leave any marks on them, because the marks would stay there through the firing.

The tiles were put in the kiln on ceramic fibre paper, and were fired up to 810 degrees, so the glass sheets were fully fused together.

We then filled the moulds we made in the last session. for the half-mould, I filled it up to about twice its depth, because it needs more glass than it looks like it should to make up for the air in between the glass pieces.

these were then put into the kiln to fire, so the pieces of glass would melt and fill the mould. 

I weighed out the glass for my rose mould, using a glass:wax ratio of 2.55:1. my wax weighed 87g, and so i calculated that i would need 221 grams of glass. I weighed out 225, in case some of the glass stuck to the inside of the reservoir instead of all flowing into the mould. These were also put into a kiln, on ceramic fibre paper in case any of the glass overflowed and dripped onto the kiln floor.

Glasswork: Steaming and carving the moulds

To create the mould for my rose, i had to get all of the wax out of the plaster to make the cavity i would then put glass in. I did this by putting the mould on top of a steamer (the same kind you use to take wallpaper off) which melts the wax, because steam is 100 degrees. the heat makes the wax liquid, which then runs out of the mould. this is one reason not to have any pieces sticking out so the wax can't get out, and the glass can't get in. any leftover wax could distort the shape and discolour the glass, so it is important to make sure there is no wax left in the mould.

 The wax came out of the mould and solidified underneath as it cooled.

 when no more wax was coming out of the mould, I flushed it out with hot water from the kettle, then cold. the hot water melted any remaining wax, and the cold water made it solidify again and float to the surface to be poured away. I repeated this until no more wax came out. I then put it in the drying cupboard.

I then carved into a plaster block to create a negative mould. i had to make sure it was deep enough to not snap if it were cast in glass. i used a leaf as my design, but simplified it slightly to make it easier for the glass to get into all the corners.

i carved the veins, so these will be stuck out when i cast it in glass.

Glasswork: Organic form lost wax casting

 In our induction into glass, we started to process of making a lost-wax mould. we each got given an egg shape on a sprue, and could carve into this, or add bits to it, to create an organic form (still working within the theme of nature and culture) I decided to try to make a rose shape, and I did this by adding pieces of spare wax to make petals. I did this in a way that I think the glass would be able to flow through the mold (the sprue will end up at the top)

once I finished the rose, I weighed it to calculate the amount of glass I would need to use to fill the mould later.

I made a clay cone shape about the same size as the flower, and sat my flower on top of it. this will create the reservoir in the mould, to hold the glass before it flows down into the mould.

i decided to attach them together using a cocktail stick because it didn't feel very secure just sitting on top of the clay.

i used boards to create a box around the rose, making sure there was about 1.5cm gap around the edges. i secured the boards in place with clay, and then tied around it with string to make sure it wouldn't collapse when the plaster was poured in.

i mixed plaster and silica together with water, until it was the consistency of single cream. it had a slight texture to it because of the silica. i poured it in around the side of the rose, so as not to damage any of the petals.

once the plaster had gone off and was cooling down, I took the walls down. I also removed the clay, to leave just the plaster and wax. I left this on the side to dry a bit more, to steam the wax out another day.

I etched my initials into the side of the plaster while it was still soft so I didn't get it confused with anyone elses.

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.

Culture meets Nature: Drawing

To continue on our theme of 'when culture meets nature' we each chose two words out of a hat, one was a natural thing, and one cultural. My two words were 'mountain' and 'shoes'. I started off by doing some observational sketches of shoes, both mine and other peoples.

I then sketched a mountain the best I could from memory (unfortunately I couldn't find a mountain in Wolverhampton) 

I then tried to combine the two, by making a 'mountain of shoes' starting with a pile of shoes, turning into a mountain further up

 Some close-ups of the drawing:

I then tried to combine them in a different way, by making the mountain into a shoe. I did this by putting laces up the side of the mountain, and trying to make it shoe shaped, while keeping the form of the mountain. I then cut away the excess paper to better show the shape.

Space: Playing with scale

Today we were looking at space, how people occupy space, and how artists create the feeling of space, or lack of it, in their work. My favourite piece I looked at was by Joel Shapiro, and it was a cast iron chair, all alone in a large room. It started me thinking about scale, and how people perceive it. A chair is something that is supposed to be a certain size, supposed to be big enough for a person to sit on, so this very small chair, that would fit in your hand, is very strange to look at, and might make people viewing it feel uneasy and confused about what to do. I wanted to use this idea of making something that is usually big, very small. I thought of different ways of doing this and I liked the idea of making whatever I decided to make out of a different material to what it usually is (Shapiro's chair is made of cast iron) after brainstorming as a group, I decided to make a cityscape, scaled down very small, and I decided to do this out of paper.

I decorated the buildings with fineliner pen to give them windows, and I liked the contrast this had with the bright white paper. I think the black and white buildings worked well on brightly coloured background as this added to the feeling that this shouldn't be there. I tried to find locations that were easily identifiable in terms of scale, to show how small the buildings are.

I arranged the pine cones to show the scale of the buildings, but also so the buildings were tucked away, in a corner, so people passing by wouldn't notice they were there.

I really like this photo because a wasp came and landed on it, but unfortunately, it's a little bit blurred because i moved slightly, but the wasp flew away so i couldn't retake the photo

These photos also have the wasp in, but not as visible as the first one.

This photo is very clear but unfortunately the wasp is not in it.

I then put it on a leaf I found, as I like all the colours of the leaf, contrasting with the stark monochrome of the buildings.

I will take more photos of the buildings in different locations in the next few days to see which background I think looks best.