Life Drawing with Clay!

One of our life drawing sesssions was to build up a drawing from a slab of clay. This seemed a daunting task to begin with, but in actual fact it was a very relaxing and almost therapeutic activity.

From this I cast a plaster mould and removed the clay once it had set.

I then cut glass to the size of the mould and placed it in the kiln so the glass took on the shape of the mould, so basically having a glass version of the clay relief. I was pleasantly surprised with the result of this, because some of the clay had fused to the glass and given it more depth and distinction, which I was worried it would lack.

Life Drawing

Finnish Glass Workshop

We had a workshop with a Finnish glass lecturer in February, and she taught us some brand new techniques to consider for our new brief 'Portrait and Identity'.

The method involved painting onto fire blanket with specialist glass enamel and placing a pane on top of the fire blanket which would fuse to the glass once in was fired. Above was my first attempt with just a single layer, and it eas supposed to be a fleshy colour but instead it decded to turn a horrible brown!

We then tried a two-layer and a three-layer piece, which was more difficult than I initially thought because you have to remember what you did on each layer and try to match it up with the others. I really like this two-layer piece, and I decided to engrave into it after it had been fired just to give it some further detail and depth.



This was my three-layer piece which I am not too keen on, because it didn't come out how I expected it to. Still, I loved the workshop and it definitely taught me a different technique I would never have tried otherwise.

The Final Table!

The Final Plates!

Here are the final plates I made for our table. When I made them I hadn't intended them to be the final product but I loved them so much they had to be used! Again I have used silver leaf, copper leaf and copper tape, but I also used a Ferrero Rocher wrapper! I really like the layered effect and the colours that have been produced.





The one below is definitely one of my favourites, just love the textures and the balance between busy areas and more subtle, simple parts. This one also has brass sheet in it, which I hadn't used before and wasn't sure how it would turn out but in fact I think this is the best feature of the plate! (The very top section is covered by brass sheet).





As much as I loved the results of all the plates, I felt as though some were slightly more successful than others and I think this is because some were too plain. So on two of the plates I took aspects of the Chinese patterns I had been looking at throughout the brief and sandblasted them on the areas that I thought needed a further dimension, and I think this has worked really well...





This one again is one of my favourites, I just think it is well balanced and the pattern on the surface almost seems part of the intended design. Also I love my little Chinese symbol in the top left (meaning year of the Ox!).

Embossed Porcelain Bowls

These bowls were made for our table setting. I had embossed Chinese patterns into the porcelain and then slumped them over different sized and shaped moulds, the intention being that they could all fit nicely into the hands.

When it came to glazing the bowls I chose a Celadon glaze (pale green and typically found on Chinese tableware), Copper Red and Titanium (White).

I used every combination of glaze on the bowls and overlapped them- partly for experimentation and partly because I really like the loss of control and uncertainty of how they will turn out.



Where I had embossed the print, the glazes were supposed to pool and pick up the detail. However, this didn't seem to happen as well I was expecting and I was quite disappointed but the textures are still nice.

The bowl below has started to pick up the detail of the pattern quite nicely. Also like the dripped glaze effect here.


A few close ups of the textures...