What does this look like to you? An expensive art pot, I am sure. Well, it's not. It's a discarded glass furnace pot, naturally glazed from probably two years worth of melting glass. This is what you gather from inside the furnace. I got it for a song from MRJ Furnaces yesterday and am completely thrilled with it. Massively heavy. Three chaps just about got it out of the car. We think it'll be a garden pool.
I might as well learn everything I can while I've got all the facilities of a well-endowed art school at my fingertips. So here I am about to let UV light etch my design onto a silk screen so I can print my own decals (transfers) so I can print onto glass. I hadn't realised that this could bring my old text and glass ideas back into the frame. Lots of potential here. And yes, I am cutting myself up into smaller and smaller pieces and I can't possibly do everything, but so what! I'm here to have fun and find things out.
This is intaglio engraving - pretty deep cut on a fairly thick blue cased plate and is a commission for an endocrinologist friend. We came to the idea of doing an enzyme molecule together -- it came out of general discussion on what they would like. How nice to get away from the 'robin-on-the-bough' style of engraving. But must have taken me a full-time week to do. Still, a new departure and it has worked.
As I had no blowing slots this week, I spent some time monoprinting. Mostly using my 'good bones / bad bones' designs in preparation for screen-printing on glas next week. But I also tried to get some marbling effects going. It's an interesting technique, because -- like marbling -- you at first think, it's all too easy to get a pleasing effect, but as you progress, you realise you aren't getting the textures or contrasts you really want. So there is some skill involved.
To Glaziers Hall last night for a lecture on the V&A collection of stained glass. Somewhat dry and curatorial, despite some charming medieval roundels that he showed. Almost the best thing was that the Hall had an original of the John Roque'1746 map. Never see the whole thing together before.
Spent the day at the London branch of the Guild of Glass Engravers. The format for the day is always a slideshow of work by a practitioner (Amanda Lawrence); lunch; and then we all get out our engraving gear and the speaker comes round and talks to you about your work. A bit like Tuesdays at Farnham -- only more relevant to my own concerns.
Went on a day's marbling course in Radnorshire this weekend to learn how it's really done. Here's my ink floating on a bed of moss size ready for feathering. It did occur to me that one could devise adjustable combs for glass to imitate some of the effects we learned, though you'd have to be pretty quick about it while the glass was very hot. How did the Egyptians do it? Anyhow, we all enjoyed the day and it's given me ideas - not to mention lots of paper for covering notebooks. 
I've been continuing my experiments with swirling 'marbling effects' and complementing them by playing along with the uneven factor. Intentionally -- but can't honestly claim total control. I quite like them, but hubby does not. A new kind of jug, I said. A new kind of wobble, quoth he.
He of the famous glass vase (blown originally into a wooden mould, we noted). Went to the exhibition at the Barbican today and saw the vases and chairs and rather more architecture than I can take. Best idea for me was the exhibition space (designed by Shigeru Ban) which was boundaried by cardboard tubes. V agreeable effect.
