The Start of 3rd Year!

So I have finally got to the start of third year! :)

For third year we get the opportunity to write our own briefs, and so we can really choose a topic we are inspired by and interested in. For me, I was not entirely sure what it was I wanted to explore, as my worry was that the topic would have bored me after a week!

However, I had bought a book during the summer called 'Lamination' by George Papadopoulos; a glass artist who laminates glass panels using resin and then smashes the panels so that the fragments then stay in their original position. I found this book absolutely fascinating, and I knew as soon as I came back to uni that this was something I definitely wanted to explore.

Some examples of George Papadopoulos' laminated glass:

I began to do a few experiments with small pieces of glass and trying to keep the pieces in place after they had been smashed. This particular test piece (below) was smashed inside a silicone baking tray. I then added a pigment to the areas of impact and sealed the cracks with a clear resin.

After the resin had been left to set slightly, another piece of un-smashed glass of the same size as the first piece was placed on top, and more resin was then poured in to fill the gaps.

This was the piece after it had set and been removed from the mould. I do like how the smashed pattern has stayed in place, but I really did not like the harsh colour of the pigment against the black and the clear areas.

I like to create subtlety in my work, and so I decided to try and achieve this by sandblasting the piece afterwards. I also sandblasted deeply in some areas to actually go through the whole of the thickness of glass and offer another dimension. This was the effect that the sandblasting had:

I was definitely much happier with this effect, and it has encouraged me to continue developing and experimenting with this idea.