Lighting

I got some electro luminescent sheet light to play with in my engravings. I ordered white, and I don't know wether they got it wrong, or the "white" is just like that, but it's painfully blue... In daylight with a lot of paper between the light and the glass it's ok, but without daylight, it it just too cold... I need to get something to use as a filter to fix the tone of the light to be more neutral.

Below is with the lights off.... I think that in the pictures it's better without the light, but it might be that it's better with the light in real life... I'm still trying to decide on that, and I think I'm unconvinced. I was pretty happy with them for a while earlier, but now I'm feeling a little less keen... we'll see how that evolves. I know in the pictures it looks like very little... and it is subtle in real life, but I think that it might be worth it.

Gears

I've made some gears out MDF to make my glass move, right now things are in process, but here's some videos of things as they move, just as a "lets see where this is going" kind of thing.

 

Laser Engraving Tests

Here's a couple more tests for laser engraving. This time, it's vectors rather than raster images, which I think I like better, it's more fluid. The top line of text in each is very light engrave, the next is light engrave, the bottom is strong engrave.

Through paint that was fired after engraving:

Through paint that had been fired on first:

Mirror, engraved both sides:

Playing with Anne Petters fusing technique

I'm sort of playing with the technique that Anne Petters showed us, drawing in plaster, and rubbing powdered glass into the lines, but I'm fusing onto flat fused glass, rather than into pâte de verre. I'm liking the results, the detail is finer than I thought it would be, and it can be done at temperatures that are quite low... this is 734C, and I'm going to try lower, which I think will work well, and give a more powdery texture, as well as maintaining the texture of the piece that I'm fusing on it. I'm thinking about applying this to the surface of engravings, it might be interesting (the dark line here is sandblasted) and I think that I will be able to maintain the texture of the engraving quite well after a firing.

I made a plaster mould of this piece after sandblasting it, took the glass out, and scratched into the mould, and used woodland brown powder. I think I like the look with the french vanilla, but it could be softer... I think I should use a colour that is less transparent, the glowing quality of the transparent over the opal french vanilla is a little off to me.

I really like drawing on my glass while it's in process, so I think that I'm going to test this out some more, in hopes of maybe using to as a way of "drawing" on engravings.

Fire Polish

I had a fire polish program that I liked, but it was for other colours of glass, and a little top-fired kiln, so I've been having difficulty getting it right these days. I'm firing in kiln 7, which I'm used to, and it seems to fire to the temperatures that I tell it to which is nice, but my normal 600 degree celsius  isn't working the way it normally does (yeah, I know that's very low, but I like things velvety.) So I've tried with higher temperatures for 10 min at a time. I'm happy with 650, and 660 is good too, at least for the clear/white combination I've been using. Here's 10 min at 640:

10 min at 650: 

Hands on Shoulders

Here's new engraving process. I asked a friend how anxiety felt, and he said it was like having someone pushing down on your shoulders with their hands... so, this is hands painted inside, a closeup of neck/collarbone/shoulders in the surface engraving. Painting:

Kiln:

Engraving as of so far:

These ones are French Vanilla on top of the tekta sheet, and opal white on top of that... I like the way that looks in reflected light, but I'm not liking the transmitted light, it's a little too yellow... which, makes it more fleshy, which is good, i think, but I think I might need to play with it to get the colours right.

Movement

I was talking with Geoff yesterday and we realised that these might be better if they moved in relation to each other since as the location changes, the meaning changes, and it might be interesting to have the viewer able to interact with that.

So... now I need to go figure out how gears and things work. That's something I don't know at all. I'm thinking something spirographish in lasercut acrylic, maybe. Anyone out there have any advice? I want them both to move around each other, not just have one as the center, also, I would like it if they couldn't bump into each other. I found a beautiful video:

Opacity tests with Sheet and Powder

I'm playing with a bunch of whites (yes, that may be crazy) to see what levels of opacity they each have  at different densities. Here's the kiln:

From the top left down: Spectrum, 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g; BE Dense White 0313 2g, 4g, 6g. 

Next column from top: BE French Vanilla 0137 2g, 4,g, 6g; BE Opaque White 0013 2g, 4g, 6g\

Third column: BE Opaline 0403 2g, 4g, 6g; BE White Opal 0113 2g, 4g, 6g. 

Fourth column: 15g Clear Medium Frit with: BE 0313 2g, 4g, 6g; BE 0113 2g, 4g, 6g

The circle is a drawing with BE 1464 sifted over it for engraving. Under is is the same thing 15g clear with 0403 left to right, 2g, 4g, 6g. Below it, left is 0137, right is 0013

And here they are when they came out of the kiln:

I think I need to get a more accurate scale and sift the powder tiles on it directly, then I'd get an even coat. The opal white on sheet I think is something that I should experiment with more, I think it would be quite useful in layering up images and playing with visibility and layering. I will also experiment with layering it with other colours for engraving, I think it might serve to add more range to other whites when I'm cutting through them.

I think maybe I should make myself a gelflex mould for doing a freezing test.

Marker Test

This is a quick one. We found a marker in the school shop that doesn't burn off completely, so is good for making tests at least so you know what you've done without having to worry that it might wash off. It doesn't fire on at 650C, but it is totally stuck on a full fuse. Posca is the name of the company. Black burns out completely, silver mostly burns out, gold keps some colour but goes a warm grey, and all the other colours turn white, so it's not useful for anything but white, but, that alone is kind of interesting. Also, while there are markers that burn off or can be washed off after they go through a full-fuse firing, and this is not one of them.

More Self Portraits

was playing with point engraving on mirror, now I'm doing it on black glass, because that's interesting and it's also reflective... and it seems that in very a particular settings, I like shiny things. Who knew? I'm always saying that I hate shiny glass. I'm enjoying hand engraving my reflection into reflective surfaces... there's something about making the reflection solid and destroying the mirror that I really like. Also, I'm leaning back towards my penchant for closeups of body parts, I know, I was told to avoid it in the winter, but Jessamy suggested it this time, so, you know... now it's going to move off the mirrors a bit and on to the painted/fused/engraved ones.