Professional Practice 2 (12)

Today was a busy day. Lisa and Sean's main job was to continue work on the huge slumped glass panel that they are creating for the Ranamok Glass Art competition - the last day for entries to be accepted is next wednesday, so they have got a lot to do to get it ready to be photographed by then. Sean has spent much of this week cutting out hundreds of tiny leaves from ceramic fiber paper and today he constructed the slumping mould. The glass has been laser-cut into the overall shape and is ready to be slumped.

                         The mould before all the leaves are put on.

               Completed mould with the laser cut glass in place ready to 
               go into the kiln for slumping.

While Lisa and Sean were busy with the tree, I got my fish design ready to go into the kiln. All the pieces were cut from ceramic fiber paper and then assembled on a plain bisque fired platter. Once everything was in place I had to paint over the whole piece with kiln wash to make sure that there is nothing that the slumped glass can stick to. Once dry, I lightly brushed over the surface with my hand and a soft paintbrush to get the surface of the kiln wash as smooth as possible. The piece is now ready to slump my glass.

                                               Fish Platter

This afternoon I assisted Mia with blowing again. This time she was trying to create a vessel with a round base and narrow neck. We have worked together a couple of times this week and are getting better - we are fine tuning our techniques and refining our rhythm now and so are having more success with our blowing - we are getting used to where the hot and cold spots are in the glory hole and working out just how much time there is to work the glass between reheats. We've also been practicing making punties -the blob of glass required to transfer a piece from the blow pipe to a punty (a pole with no hole through it) and we are getting better - every piece apart from the first one, made it into the annealer without cracking the base!

                                 Pulling the neck out on the vase.

Professional Practice 2 (11)

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Professional Practice 2 (10)

Glass Xpressions have got quite a big job on at the moment, designing and making glass splash-backs and counters for a new gelato shop in Surfers Paradise.

The glass has all been cut and toughened and now sections of have to be slumped and hand painted. 

The glass panel that is to be the main sign in the shop is in a kiln being slumped at the moment and will be painted when it comes out, so in the meantime I helped Sean with the swirling paint job of the main wall panels. 

These sections are having red and green swirls painted on them and will be finished with a spray coat of White Pearl so they end up looking like swirls through icecream. The green paint is easy to apply, but the red is a transparent colour and takes a lot of very careful coats to get right. The panels are placed upside down on top of the template and painted by hand, the panel that butts up against this one was positioned on the table in alignment with it before we started, just to make sure that the new painted lines completely match up with the other panel.

Very fiddly work that took all morning!

                            Sean hard at work on one of the panels.

The good news today is that the new element has been fitted to the glass furnace and the glass is starting to heat up again - should be ready to use in a day or two.

Professional Practice 2 (9)

Well, we are still waiting for the new element for the glass furnace to come from the US, so no glass blowing this week.

Instead I have been helping Lisa by looking at the latest design she has in mind as an entry for the Ranamok. The deadline for entry is looming and she hasn't decided on a final design yet. Today we looked at a leaf design she has drawn up and started to carve out of fiber board. We also looked at all the colours she has available in her extensive collection of glass sheets to put together a colour scheme.

Lisa checking shades of Bullseye glass against the light. We have to look for sheets of glass that are compatible with each other. All glass has a "COE" compatibility rating that has to be the same if you are fusing glass together - you can't fuse one glass with another of a different "COE". With brands of glass such as Bullseye and Spectrum glasses within each brand are compatible with each other, but not with another brand. So, we looked at what combination worked well within the Bullseye range and also within the Spectrum range to see which selection suited the concept better.

We also looked at frits (granulated) and powdered glass for colours that could be used for shading - again these have to be compatible with the main glass being used, whether it is Bullseye or Spectrum (they both have their own ranges of frits and powders).

This is a platter that Lisa is preparing for a slumped design. The platter is "green" this means that it is unfired so Lisa can carve into the clay as well as building it up with layers of refractory paper to get more definition in the finished piece. We discussed colours for this piece which will be made with sheet glass as well as powders and frits. The powders will be used to fill the carved out areas but we have to work out how they will mould into the sheet glass - a piece like this may take several firings to get the effect right.

A glass splashback almost ready for installation. The last job is to lightly go over the surface with the finest grade of steel wool to make sure that all overspray from when the back was being spray painted, is removed, so I got a feel for doing that today.

Professional Practice 2 (8)

Today was our big day. Judith Schaechter flew up from Canberra last night and after an early run on the sand at Broadbeach this morning, was soon ready for action. All our 14 participants arrived in good time and by 10 am Judith was ready to go. 

The first part of the morning was spent watching Judith's slide show of her work. Her body of work is huge and the detail in her technique is just amazing - much of how she produces her images has been learned by trial and error, simply trying any way she can think of to produce an image on the glass and in this way she has built up the repetoire of techniques that give her work such a unique look. 

The rest of the day was spent watching Judith at work and trying her methods for ourselves. She had brought with her many samples of glass that she has worked images into, and spent a good deal of time going through the pieces and explaining just how she achieved the effects demonstrated in the glass. She also brought with her a piece of glass on which she had just started an image - one of her signature faces had just been started by sandblasting the surface of the glass to reveal a light shadow of the form. During the class Judith showed us how to work the surface of the flashed glass with an engraver and a diamond hand pad to produce exquisite detail. We all tried out the engraving and sanding techniques ourselves on this piece and all achieved excellent results.

The day went so quickly, we had a break for lunch and in the afternoon watched Judith demonstrate her painting techniques, but before we knew it the day was over.

                                               

                         Marina from Sydney and Gavin from Hobart

                                               

Judith explaining the stages for shading a face and getting detail to a fascinated Mia.

                                               

The demo piece with a face already sandblasted into it. Judith then showed us how to draw in the detail with a dremmel (engraver) and we all got to have a go.

                                                

                                 Some of Judith's sample pieces.

                                                

This face is made up of four layers of sanded, engraved and painted glass, in real life the richness of the colour is just amazing.

                                                

The four layers that made up the image photographed above.

                                                 

The demonstration face that we all had worked on. The glass Judith uses is called "flash glass" this is a sheet of clear glass that has had a very thin layer of coloured glass applied to one side of it. the detail is achieved by working back through the layer of coloured glass.

Everybody felt like they had learned something new from the day, which is of course, the best measure of success for a workshop like this and it was worth all the effort of bringing it together.

Professional Practice 2 (7)

Well, no hot shop this week - the furnace has burnt out an element already! A new one has been ordered from the US but will take a week or so to get here.

So in the meantime Lisa and I are getting ready for our workshop with Judith Schaechter on saturday.

We have got fourteen people booked for the workshop and they are coming from all over - Sydney, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Newcastle and even Hobart!

Today we needed to make sure that we have got the space ready and all the equipment we need. The worktable in the upstairs studio is perfect and even has a built in lightbox. Lisa has borrowed a hand held sandblaster from Art Glass and I am bringing in a Dremmel with a flex-shaft for engraving. Judith is bringing some flash glass with her for the demo and we have got glass paints here if she needs them. Tomorrow I am borrowing some stools from our studio at uni for the weekend so that everyone can sit down - it's too long a day to stand all the time.

The last job was to make sure that everyone has got the address and has confirmed that they are coming - and that they know what the final payment for the workshop is - everyone has paid a deposit but it is only now that I know exactly what our expenses are and what numbers that we have coming, that I can work out the balance.

I have sent the web check-in details to ANU so that they can check Judith onto her flight tomorrow night. I will be picking her up at 9.30pm along with two of our visitors from Sydney (miraculously I have been able to get them all to arrive within fifteen minutes of each other!).

So that's it for today - no photos, but should have lots after saturdays workshop.

Professional Practice 2 (6)

The hot shop is properly operational at last! 

I came in early this morning to assist Mia with blowing. The furnace is hot and full of lovely treacly glass so we gave it a proper work out. 

Mia has had new pipes made and they work really well and she has got some beautiful new jacks from Moore in Seattle. It was only as we were going along though, that we could really gauge what little things were still missing from the new hot shop and now have a fresh wish list that includes, among many other things, some smaller blocks and a pipe warmer! 

Despite this we were going along quite well until we tried to make cane. It was then that our lack of a pipe cooler became evident as Mia grasped the pipe in the wrong place and burnt her hand! This was just at the moment that we had joined the clear and coloured glass together and were just about to start pulling. We still ended up pulling - just not in anything like the direction we were supposed to, the result of which is that Mia now has some very thick and strangely shaped turquoise glass that looks nothing like cane. This unfortunately brought our morning of blowing to a close, but the good news is that after half an hour of keeping her hand in iced water it looks like she has not burnt it badly and should get away with it. During the break next week Mia, Lisa and I are all hoping to get in to the hot shop for a full day to really get into the swing of blowing again and hopefully Mia will have got Eric to make a pipe cooler by then!

Mia Heating up the bubble in the glory hole

Going for a reheat after it has been blown

Professional Practice 2 (5)

Great Excitement this week! The Furnace is full of hot glowing glass and Mia has started blowing! There is still lots of fine tuning to do - she needs some new pipes that aren't quite so bashed and bent and she needs some bigger blocks, but basically it all works. Well - I say it all works, we had a slight technical hitch this morning as between the three of us, we could NOT work out why the glory hole wouldn't light - it was working yesterday, but today wouldn't have it at all - until Eric finally arrived and noticed that a very discrete "RESET" button had popped out!

Lisa was very upset that it took a man to come and fix it for us (which he did in about 20 seconds!). By this time it was a bit too late to really get into some blowing, so next week we are going in extra early so that I can properly assist Mia.

The rest of the morning we spent trying to join Lisa up with Ausglass (but the website wouldn't work) and we started thinking about how to market more to architectural firms for more business. We have also decided to get the sandblasting cabinet I looked at this week - then no doubt it will be quite another challenge to connect it all up to the air compressor. The next thing I will have to do is find out what media we should get to sandblast glass and where to get it from.

No photo's this week as for some reason my computer refuses to read the files from my phone (yet another technical challenge to be overcome!).

BUT - I do have photo's of my first glass block to come out of the kiln at QCA.

This is my first map block - 5 layers of 4mm Bullseye tekta glass with a high-fire enamel printed map.

The kin worked well, but I did have a couple of complications. 

I couldn't be there for top temp and there is a slight de-vit along one edge (ideally I would be there to manually drop the temp more quickly), and I had to leave it on a 24 hour soak at annealing temp as the controller only has 3 stages and I had to fit in a visit back to re-program it - tricky with my already tight lecture schedule.

Still I'm pleased with the result - just got to work out how to cold work it now!

Professional Practice 2 (4)

This week at Glass Xpressions Mia and Eric have been making progress with the setting up of the new Hot Shop. The furnace is ready to go and today they brought in an extra annealing kiln. The kiln is halfway through being refurbished - it has had a new lining installed and now needs all the electrics to be fixed. It's a good size kiln that has been purchased from a local potter and because it doesn't have the elements in at the moment, Mia can specify them to be just where she wants them. Most of the mornings entertainment was watching Lisa and Eric compete with each other as to who was the best forklift driver! (I personally think it was a tie in the end).

                                              Eric and Mia

We also did research on sorting out a sandblaster and I'm going to look at a cabinet next monday - just a small benchtop one, but hopefully good enough for our needs.

The rest of the morning I spent with Lisa going through her stock of glass pulling together a collection of pieces that I might be able to use for my first stained glass piece. I've chosen some blues, greens and yellows that I want to print on and paint with ceramic enamels. I've brought them home and cleaned them up and now a design is taking shape.

Lastly, here's a photo of the lovely Lexie - my favourite glass studio dog  (she is such a personality - I love her!)

Professional Practice 2 (3)

Busy morning at Glass Xpressions today. Everyone was still flat out organising deliveries when I get there and Sean was putting a third sheet of glass into a kiln to slump into a sign for a local real estate agent. The previous two had not turned out successfully and the sign is required for the new office opening next monday - so this one has to work!

I spent more than half of the morning with Cathy, the accounts person, checking details for the workshop we are organising for the first weekend in May.

I was very concerned this morning when I discovered that I didn't have a confirmation for the flight I had booked to get our artist from Canberra up here to the Gold Coast. After checking the credit card statement and making a couple of phone calls to Virgin Blue we finally found that the flight was booked (phew!) but they just hadn't emailed the confirmation for some reason! Still, it's all confirmed now and bookings are now being made by those attending the demonstration - I have spent a lot of time this week answering enquiries and making sure that everyone has the payment details - it looks like we should have a good crowd for on the day.I have also been putting in a proposal to Ausglass for some funding for the event. This was approved at the last meeting, so we have got some money to put towards the fee for our artist.

Once we had all got our admin stuff sorted out, we didn't have much time left, so instead of doing our wax models we had a meeting to discuss the technical aspects a design that Lisa has come up with for a work that she would like to make and enter into the Ranamok Glass Art Prize competition this year. It would be a very challenging piece of slumped glass as it is large, and fixing it into a base will be difficult. By the end of the meeting we were all agreed that it will have to be designed around a steel rod supporting structure and Lisa is aiming to make a float glass mock up for us to have a look at by next week.

Professional Practice 2 (2)

My second thursday morning at Glass Xpressions.

For the next few weeks it is my turn to teach a new skill - I am teaching Lisa, Mia and Sean how to do lost wax casting.

In preparation for today I found the Barnes showroom in Brisbane and went there on monday to stock up on wax and the other necessities needed to start making wax models. This morning I packed up my hot-plate, pans and tools and have set up an area in the studio to start melting wax.

Most of the morning was spent going through the basics. I showed everyone the best sort of pans for melting the wax in and how to pour it into different containers to make various sizes of wax blocks for moulding into shapes. 

Lisa had a roll of waxed paper - the backing paper from commercial signs produced in the factory unit next door, and this proved to be an excellent surface for pouring wax onto to create thin sheets for model making.

By the end of the morning we were able to start moulding the wax into shapes and start working the surface with tools, Lisa and Sean have promised to work on their models during the week so that we will soon each have something to make a mould of.

                                 Making a mess with wax already

Lisa and sean contemplating what vessels will make the best moulds for the wax

Professional Practice 2 (1)

 Time to blow away the cobwebs and start blogging again.

This new series of posts are to record my thursday mornings spent at Glass Xpressions, which is where I am doing my placement for the industry experience part of my Professional Practice 2 course at QCA.

Glass Xpressions is run by the fabulous Lisa who, apart from running the busiest glass splashback business on the Gold Coast, is an accomplished glass artist creating glass installation pieces for residential and commercial projects all over South East Queensland. In recent times she has completed a 5 metre diameter glass wall installation for a home in Sovereign Island and an installation piece for Griffith University's Gold Coast Campus commemorating the original occupiers of the land. I hope to post photo's of these works soon.

So today was my first session with the team. By the time I arrived at 9am, Lisa had already completed the first task of the day (the first task of everyday!) which is organising all the deliveries for that day and sending off vans full of glass panels for jobs all over the local area with all the information needed for successful installation.

This done, Lisa could relax and settle into the project she had organised for myself and Mia to complete this morning. Lisa's background is in stained glass so this morning she set about teaching Mia and myself how to cut detailed glass shapes for lead lighting. Mia's training is as a glass blower, she is Finnish and has trained at Kosta Boda in Sweden for many years, but she has never cut glass shapes before. I have had some experience of cutting glass for projects, but I have always managed to avoid cutting fiddly shapes.

Lisa gave us both a standard design and showed us just how to get all the shapes fitting together.

 Mia (left) and Lisa

I enjoyed the process of working out just which parts of the glass to cut away first in order to end up with the shape I wanted, but Mia found it quite frustrating trying to make the brittle and fragile glass break the way she wanted it to, she is so used to moulding and manipulating hot glass (a skill that most people in the world would agree is immeasurably harder!) that she found cold brittle glass very unpleasant to deal with - it was hard to break, would then break the wrong way and was prone to those horrible sharp splinters.

In the end I was happy with my results - although I know that Mia was not quite so happy with her results.

My pieces all pretty much fitted together, and with a little grinding would make up successfully into a leadlight panel. Having said that, I still don't think I will ever have much need for such fiddly details in my work - but you never know!

                    Cutting out all the pieces with the help of a template