Bluebottle Glass

New set of four drops in the kiln and ready to start heating in an hour and a half. Glass will take 18 hours to get to drop temperature and then around 5 ½ hours to fall 420mm

A stunning group of five

Two new beautiful drops. Two lost in production.

In a very troubled week, please let me introduce you to this creme brulee trio in glass. Comfort needed for many!

Three new vases. Not great photos, but that’s another storey. Designs evolving….. “Standing duo with another vying for attention”

A shorter vase (around 300mm) in Icelandic rough tassel blanket colours.

Normas Flowers, 440mm (17 inch) tall vase.

18 inch drop completed. Cold working when it’s not to hot to handle, then a colour reveal!

All of the glass sliders have been broken up, fired to 830 degrees centegrade a few times and this is what came out...(almost finished)... its about (620mm x 420mm by 25mm thick)

I've spent the last three days making sliders (not small burgers), which will eventually end up as a portrait apparently. Studio air temperature currently running at about 40 degrees C with a small and medium sized kiln running 20 hours a day, doors and windows open. Hope its assisting with the covid weight loss!

Have been learning wood turning to make molds for glass - on the journey i've made a few bowls.

Frustrating evening, after a good Grand Prix. Time to demould my project of the week, but unfortunately, I didn't fire long enough! Pate de verre can be tricky!

If you can’t see, it a pair of knickers for part of a sculpture I’ve been discussing with Georgia and feminism. The bottom is not intact!

How long to hold glass at the working temperature is the key to a successful PDV project! Glass & it’s appropriate heat work can be achieved by a combination of temperature and time, so 1 hour at 750c may have the same effect same as 780c for 10 minutes.

This is a difficult project for a number of reasons.

It was a large test, and I deliberately chose black and white as these are two difficult colours to use together as the viscosity changes at slightly different temperatures (black absorbing the heat, white reflecting it). Black was in the more difficult topmost position in the mould where it would get more heat. I wanted to test glass both ends of the spectrum. The mould had a number of difficult undercuts to reflect the stretched tension in the material and the glass was deliberately thin, to reflect fabric.

On this occasion the length of the hold at 760c for 1 hour 30 minutes wasn’t long enough for the thickness of my mould and the glass in the bottom didn’t melt and remained powder in places. Had I have gone hotter there was a real risk that the black glass would have worked its way off of the top of the mould as could the white at the undercuts. I could have been left with a glass puddle. The glass would have collapsed into the bottom of the mould. I got the undercuts fused which is a real achievement, but the bottom of the mould was still powder.

A longer hold next time.