are 20 images too many?

this is the last few days or week in review. i have been busy so i will keep this brief.

i have done another layer on the enamels. i think they will need one more after this and then they will be done. 

 

i have an idea on how to use enamels in my artwork and will do a test this week.

 

i made some more cylinders, these i will become flattened and then be used for a wall piece. 

i have been thinking of making a wall piece with the squares that have been slumped in a mold so they are shallow dishes. so the wall piece will not be totally flat.

i have been blowing glass 2 times a week. it has been great to be back in the hot shop. i really do enjoy it, and will hopefully continue making it into the hot glass studio in the new year. 

 

 and surprisingly i have remembered how to blow glass better than i thought i would, like riding a bike. 

this is a cylinder that has been flattened ready to be rolled up backwards. the next step is to be slowly heat them up in a kiln as below, with the colour side down.

 this is what my reverse rolls ups look like when i load them in the kiln before my session to warm them up. I heat them to 580 degrees before heating them in the glory hole and then rolling them up.

these are my first 2 reverse roll ups. they are smallish about 15 cm tall.

 

this is the result of one of my blowing sessions last week. 4 hours of fun and work. 

this is the image i am thinking of sandblasting onto the slumped plates. not sure about it yet, but think i need to do one to figure it out. I am not sure if it looks too machine made or mass produced. i think product needs more of a hand touch to be successful. there is no point making things that need to compete with items made for much less overseas, there needs to be a point of difference. 

 

these are the scraps i have been saving from cutting out sections of my cylinders. i really like the jagged edges and i am going to try and fuse them together into a new sheet of glass.

these are my new works. they are the first of the reverse roll ups. basically i made the cylinders with the colour on the inside as this is the easiest way to layer colour on a form. then i slump the cylinders open so the colour is on the surface. then i flip the sheet over so the colour is on the outside, heat it up and then roll it up backwards in the hot shop again.

 

these forms are best when i do as little as possible to them. these are around 30 cm tall.

 

they are like rolled up pieces of paper.

 

they can have movement and form.

there seems to be endless possibilities for the shape of them.

and they might not be done just yet either. while i like the solid colour and the fading colour i am thinking of sandblasting a super pixelated image into the surface of the colour to reveal the white. more of an abstract image than i have previously used in my work.

top view of the blue form. from the front it looks cylindrical, but it really is like a rolled up bit of paper. 

there is also the option is setting them up like more formal settings. maybe the vertical form is etched with image and the base is left plain. or maybe the base is printed paper in the shape of the flat form of the vertical section. 

not sure yet, but i am interested in exploring a few ideas.

so that was basically what i have been doing for the past few days. more to come with only 12 days of my residency left, i have a more work to do.