Verrier

Verrier specialises in the design and making of architectural and decorative glass for domestic, and commercial settings. Leaded and kiln formed techniques are used to provide windows, wall hangings and decorative features.

Verrier uses the traditional values of high quality craftsmanship, attention to detail and fitting the work to the requirements of the client. It is preferred to visit the site to ensure the glass is suitable for the situation. Clients are also encouraged to visit the studio to confirm the work practices and ability of Verrier to meet their requirements.

Restoration of existing windows is done to high standards whether for simple or historically important windows. Verrier has worked with the Glasgow City Heritage Trust on several projects and with various architects and builders on larger projects.

Verrier also conducts weekend workshops and some evening classes, as well as supplying glass and tools to other workers and enthusiasts.

Verrier is run by Stephen Richard who has had art training at the University of Kansas and Glasgow Metropolitan, and in master classes with Paul San Casciani and Klaus Moje. He is involved with various professional bodies: Past Chairman of the Scottish Glass Society, Past Chairman of the International Guild of Glass Artists (currently on the advisory board), Past Chair of craftscotland, member of British Society of Master Glass Painters, and the Contemporary Glass Society. He established Architectural Glass Artists in 1998, which has grown into the largest collaborative glass studio in Scotland.

More information is available in my cv (link at the top of the page) which links to various projects.
You can also contact Verrier:

email at stephen.richard43@gmail.com

telephone at 0141 556 5700

mobile 0771 883 1117

or drop into the studio:

Studio 8 WASPS Studios, 77 Hanson Street, Glasgow G31 2HF

Evening Classes, 2011

Together with two colleagues, we have decided to offer evening classes in Leaded Glass and Kiln Formed Glass. These will run on Tuesdays from 7:00 - 9:00 pm for eight weeks each. They will take place in the studio.



Details about the classes can be found here:
Leaded Glass
Kiln Formed Glass

Moon and Stars at Night

Every studio has a large part of its work from restoration.

This recent one came about when the removal people broke the bottom two thirds of this panel. The owners wanted to retain it for sentimental reasons, but needed it expanded to fit a new location. Their initial suggestion was to continue lines in the original to fill out to the required area. After discussion we all agreed that it was better to keep the original conception and "frame" it with a glass that did not compete with the original.

This shows the panel before cementing - the numbers are still there. The expansion is the clear textured glass around the perimeter. The bottom blue and most of the textured centre were broken. The top was in tact. Only three of the bottom blue were unbroken and only one of the clear - the white centre.

The original maker - maybe in the 1960's or 70's - used quality handmade glass, and the white is flashed Desag. I continued the restoration by using handmade glass for the substitutes/replacements to keep some of the original character.

The owners do not know what the inspiration for the panel might have been, but I like to think of it as water, sky and night. The blue base could stand in for water. The central panel consists of vertically oriented seedy glass, making me think of rain, with a pale sun. The top is a dark blue which with the white shapes lead me to think of the moon and stars on a showery night. So this for me is "Moon and Stars at Night"

St Silas's Church Hall, Installed

Back in August I reported on the early stages of the restoration of the wheel window and three small "supporting" lights.

Now that the building is nearing its completion, it was time to install the big window into its new home. The stone has been re-erected, with the location markings still visible at close quarters. Installing into stone channels is always more concerning, as the panels have to be big enough to stay in the stone, but not so big as to be impossible to put in. I got someone to help with the installation, both to give assistance and to keep me calm.

The first day, we could only install the bottom half of the wheel window, as the scissors lift was in constant use by the painters and no other scaffolding could be put up there while the painters were at work. So after four hours we left, with the promise that the lift would be in place for us in the morning.

Morning came, but the lift was not there. There was no one qualified to drive it either. We did a few odd jobs for an hour or so, and then the lift became available. The top half of the window fitted well with little difficulty. We finished it up and went for lunch.

The difficult part came with the little windows. It seems like there is less room for manoeuvre. The stone was badly eroded in some places also. So, out we went to buy a 110 volt angle grinder as the site's one had gone missing. Still it will be a good tool in the future. It was an essential one for this installation, as we had to cut one new channel and deepen all the others. Four hours after we started on these three little windows, we began to seal them with the sand mastic. I finished on the inside first and was able to stand back and admire.

Fortunately, the other workmen on the site also admired the work. But most importantly the architect approved the work. Very important for me, as it appears he initially preferred another person for the job.

This is the completed installation of the main window and its three supporting windows.

The outside of the window from below

The window from the inside staircase

Open Studios, Day 2

The second day of the Wasps Open studios was a little shorter, a little less busy, but more time to talk with people. I had set up a few things to do to demonstrate some techniques and activities. So I finished leading and soldering a panel I am repairing,

and ground and polished some small vessels for the Christmas shows.

It seemed a happy weekend for everyone. Some people made sales. I didn't make many, but the best thing for me was meeting people, learning new things and letting people know I am here and what I do. Also half a dozen people asked about classes. I never remember how tiring it can be meeting and talking with a lot of people.


So I came home and vegetated last night, feeling good about a successful Open Studios weekend.

Open Studios, Day 1

WASPS Open Studios Weekend is in its 10th annual open studios event. Workshop and Artist Studio Provision Scotland - to give it its official name - is my landlord. The building I am in is one of the largest having 86 studios and over 100 artists working in the Hanson Street building which they keep trying to brand as WASPS Factory. Of course, it once was a tobacco factory, but I do not think anything being done in the building now is remotely like a factory - unless it relates to low wages.

Open Studios weekend is my annual opportunity to give the studio a deep clean. Possibly I get too involved in re-arranging equipment, benches, shelves, and storage, but I does make a difference as you can see from the entrance.

And from the back, near the kilns, it is a totally transformed place. People say it looks larger. I say I have just cleared up all the accumulated junk of the past year.

Bet even when I say that, I am proud of what has been achieved.

As I arrived today before the opening time, I noticed no one had done much about the front of the building. No one had cleared the weeds in the car park. No one had swept the area outside the entrance. And I had not pruned the clematis as I promised myself I would do - tomorrow - for the last month. So today I did some of these things. I also pruned the three varieties of clematis that grow outside the sliding door of my studio. I found the flowers with amazingly long stamens had transformed themselves after the petals fell into this intricate spiral of strands. I think something needs to be done with this image.

The day was interesting for the number of people I met and talked with. People interested in how I assemble leaded glass, who say with amazement "So, you do repairs too!!", people who admire the work on display, people who are interested in the techniques, or the tools, or the equipment, people who admit they are artists coming round to see how other people do something. All these people are interesting and entertaining, even the person who told a friend that "He is useless. He takes far too long to do a commission" and then went into the one space set aside as private.

The day is always stressful because you are meeting new people, responding to questions, trying to do several things at once all the time. Lunch was at 2:30 standing at a bench explaining to someone how the glass fits into the came, for example.

But the day was made more stressful, by finding out on Friday that the new point of sale credit card machine that I have had for 6 weeks was not working. Phoned the help line and after three times getting the message "We are receiving a high volume of calls today. Please leave your name and telephone number and we will contact you as soon as possible" I got a person who after taking a number of details from me informed me that my problem would be put to his team on Monday. He was a facilitator [!] taking details for others to work on at some other time. As I was trying to sort a problem with a - now disappeared - customer, I thought I was quite reasonable in saying "This is not acceptable! I need this sorted today. I have a big weekend coming up. I need to have this working now!" He conceded that it was very frustrating to be unable to sort the problem immediately, but if I really needed things sorted this weekend, I could phone on Saturday morning [! why not today?].

I duly phoned and left messages, until at 11:00 I got a person! Explained the problem. He has to contact the bank as - after all - he only represents the supplier of the machine, not the financial institution. After a 15minute wait while he phoned the bank, he tells me that the bank does not have my machine registered with my merchant number. So he can do nothing until Monday.

So I finally find a help number for the bank and they tell me "Yes, I can see from the computer that you are registered for this machine. Your machine reports a bad MAC? Well there is nothing I can do about that. It is the POS supplier's problem. You must contact them and they will arrange for a new MAC to be issued."

More left messages and on only the third call I got a person. After giving some details, he said "You are the person I talked to earlier today aren't you?" Yes, I am. These are the instructions I have received from the bank which now says I can recognise my merchant number and machine." He says he will have to contact the bank, but to avoid keeping me on the phone for a long time again, he will phone back. I wasn't sure that he actually would, but as I did have other things to do, I allowed the connection to be broken.

Amazingly, he did phone back a couple of hours later. Saying that the problem has been discovered. The bank has allocated two businesses to the same MAC. As the other business although newer than me is taking transactions and I am not, they will not cancel the other person's MAC to give it back to me. So, being very helpful, he promises to send me another machine to solve the problem. "You will have it on Tuesday." "How does that solve my problem today?" "I am sorry, this is the best I can do." It was as much as I could do to avoid swearing as I hung up the phone.

Now, most of the time there is a backup. However, the bank has failed to deliver this backup and associated documentation for almost 3 months. They state they have sent it out three times. It has never arrived. They can send me bills, and bank statements, but cannot deliver me the backup machine which would have overcome the crisis.

I think I have been too kind to the companies involved. The bank is Barclays and the POS company is Thyron. I don't have much respect for either just now. Their help lines are disrespectful in their approach to fielding phone calls "we will call you back". HAH. Never have they called me back from the more than 20 messages left at various times over the last four weeks. The bank does no follow up to find out if things have been received. The customer cannot do it, because they have no contact details. All I know is that the relevant department is in Northampton and that is not directly from the bank.

If you have got this far, you will know the long of it. The short of it is: It has been a stressful day.

Tomorrow should be better. No card machine and no worries about its absence.

Open Studio

In just two weeks at 12:00 the 10th WASPS open studios weekend will start. I am in the midst of trying to get a window completed for installation in the week before. So this year people are going to see a working studio, not a clean one. I realise that as I have participated in all of the open studio weekends, I have done 10 years of this. It continues to be fascinating meeting people with novel approaches to my work. I may have a bit of time to display a few things, but mostly it will be a working studio for the weekend. I might even get a few things done while talking with people.

Come along, if you can, to 77 Hanson Street, Glasgow G31 2HF. There is parking, a cafe, and lots of artist's studios open.

We’ve Made it Through Our First Show!

Among other things, I am a member of a group called Parade Artists. And I am using that as an excuse to tell you all about our background and experiences at our first big retail show a fortnight ago. Parade Artists took a stand at Homes and Interiors 2010 to find new audiences and test the ability of a local collective of artists to show alongside commercial organisations.

Parade Artists is a collection of artists working in the Hanson Street, Glasgow WASPS building, and which was formed in 2007 as a development of some uncoordinated efforts in two previous years. It has a fluctuating number of members of about 15 - 20 people, but with a consistent core of 10. The members - unusually for creative collectives - work in a diversity of media which include painting, textiles, ceramics, glass, photography and mixed media.

The objective of Parade Artists is to find new avenues of marketing and selling that work for the group and the individuals within it. It is now directed by a steering group to keep continuity in decision making, after it was found that a completely democratic organisation took too long to come to consensus and frequently changed its collective mind depending on who was at the meeting. All members are entitled to attend the meetings and the minutes are public to the members.

The original objective was to hold two shows a year within the building. Parade Artists has achieved annual Christmas shows, some Spring and Summer shows which involve the community, although not every year. Experience of these shows led toward events on selling and marketing for the members, both in a self-help fashion and in formal sessions presented by outsiders. We have had help from East End Enterprise and Cultural Enterprise too. Less obvious achievements have been to bring a diverse group of artists – both in media and personality – together. It gives the ability to work to the strengths of individuals, so making the direct selling effect better for the less market oriented people, and for the less detail oriented to get help with organisation. The shows have changed from a market stall arrangement to exhibition oriented ones.

All this brought us to the decision to try presenting ourselves to a wider public - it is said that the Homes and Interiors has around 20,000 visitors over the three days of the show. This was the biggest investment decision for group ever - £1100 as a single speculative venture for a small non-profit organisation was difficult but the collective enthusiasm carried us forward. The participation fee was set at £100 and to every one's surprise eleven people signed up!

Having made this decision, we needed to make sure it worked. A number of things were set in place:

• Developing clear areas of responsibility
• Covering for absences
• Developing a professional presentation - buying rather than making display
• Keeping to budget – as predicted we spent as much on display and marketing materials as on the stand.
• Setting deadlines and keeping to them – which we achieved.
• Obtaining a mobile point of sale credit card machine especially for the Homes and Interiors show. One third of the sales were through credit and debit cards.

Among the decisions on areas of responsibility one was that the selection and setting up of the objects was to be done by only three people. Although this was not completely satisfactory to everyone, it was important to presenting the most work in a coherent manner and it proved to be an attraction to visitors rather than a jumble sale. Clear selling instructions with back ups were important to sorting the financial affairs, although there were still problems with recording the information. The best days for sales and contacts were Friday and Saturday. The decision to have two main sellers and another person floating about to help in busy times worked well. The collection of contact details was generally easy. We had two means of beginning the conversations – a card advertising the WASPS open studios (which ran out too quickly) and talking about the collective and the range of work on display and offering to keep people in contact with the activity of the individuals and of Parade Artists.

Set-up almost complete

Our experience at a big retail show left us with some lessons and other things to consider. Some of the elements to consider are:

• Simple inventory lists and reference numbers with multiples having the same reference number.
• Someone to concentrate on taking money and wrapping procedures both to relieve pressure on the sales people and to ensure consistency in recording sales.
• Concentrate the people with greatest sales ability on the most productive days (not Sunday).
• More awareness of the public should be engendered among all of us.
• More training on selling from the front of rather than behind the stand is required as it really is different.
• More careful consideration of the amount of stock taken to the show requires more focused decision-making at the selection stage.
• A more seamless method of getting contact details is required
• Affordable publicity material for all our activities needs to be developed and funded.
• A higher profile for our website on the stand and in publicity materials is required.

Still Friends at the End of the Show

Our ambitions are to:

• Continue to be presenting work directly to the buying public
• Work toward a permanent shop
• Begin representing artists other than members
• Have an annual presence at a major trade show
• Develop a robust business structure, e.g., a cooperative such as described by Creative Cooperatives - http://www.creatives.uk.coop/

The experiences at Homes and Interiors are a major step forward for Parade Artists. Although we have a way to go to match the display equipment standards of the commercial exhibitors, our stand attracted as much interest as the larger organisations. We need to build on the things learned and begin to pay attention to the nuts and bolts of organisational structure to continue to develop and grow.

Lochgilphead

Yes, most people will have little idea where or what this is. It is a town at the head of Loch Gilp on the West coast of Scotland. Loch Gilp is a branch off the main sea loch of Loch Fyne. These western sea lochs are similar in many ways to the more famous Norwegian fjords. The long fingers of water are surrounded by mountains - in this case, green to the tops. They have both economic - fishing, fish and shell fish farming being the main ones - and recreational - sailing, boating, fishing and walking (on the hills, not the water) - uses.

I was asked to quote on the window aspect of the transformation of the small parish church hall into a larger community hall, while retaining the existing external features of the turn of the century building. On close inspection, a few arts noveau features can be seen, notably the ventilation cowling at the top of the building and in the etched glass on the interior swing doors - yes they have survived!

I was among the sea lochs on one sunny Saturday and decided to visit the site and Lochgilphead, never having been there before. I am glad I did, as it altered my view of the amount of work required. It is also a very pleasant part of the world.

It is not a very impressive building upon initial approach from the street. It has a community aspect to it already with the recycling bins in the front. It is a pretty standard harled wall with stone corner pieces and around the windows and mullions.

To the side of the main frontage and providing the entrance to the whole building is the porch. I provides a little less forbidding aspect to the building.

Around to the right of the building is another set of four windows. These as all the other windows are quarry glazed with what was then relatively standard tinted glass.

Closer inspection of these windows shows some significant repair work will be required. In fact, one window ought to be removed and the bottom section taken apart, re-leaded and new glass inserted where many panes are broken.

The real shock comes when you go into the lane between the Cooperative and the church.

This is the broken down part of the hall. All the windows have had their glass systematically broken, so that only shards hang from the twisted leads. The gutters are broken, the paving stones are uneven and the thick doors bolted tightly.

Even the high level window has most of its glass broken out.

The plan calls for internal secondary double glazing. With this level of vandalism, I think they need external protective glazing too.

How the owners will keep the glass in tact when renewed, is something I don't think the architects have thought about yet. Only how to keep the windows from letting in a lot of cold air. It is also clear that the mastic keeping the glass and stone water tight has failed. If you look closely at the top window facing the street, you will see a plant growing on the INSIDE of the window.

This quotation did not take so long as the Maryhill Burgh Halls application did, but excluding the drive and inspection, a day was required just to gather and organise the information into a form for the Builders. This would be a nice project to work on because of the many little difficulties it presents.

One-Day Fusing Experience

An old - but young - friend brought two of her friends for a day of working together in the studio. She had some designs in mind and had enough previous experience that I could leave her to get on while I took the other two through how to cut glass. Neither had cut any glass before coming to the studio.

They both took to it well. Within 45 minutes, I was ready to let them go with designing. By lunch time the designs were prepared and the colours selected. The period just after lunch was the time that their designs were drastically simplified as they came to grips with the nature of the glass.

The person I am going to concentrate on is not better than the other, it is just that her design went through a significant transformation. She early on decided on using strips to create a sinuous design which would be formed to be self supporting. This determination to do many repetitive cuts of strips might have tested many, but she took to the task well, with few shattered strips. She was a bit dismayed when she thought she had done enough strips, after two hours cutting only to find that she had at least half as many again to cut.

At the end of the day, we laid the strips out on the stainless steel mould with a layer of Thinfire over.

I liked the pattern of subtle coloured shadows the strips threw onto the paper below. Unfortunately, the light levels mean that the camera did not pick up so much of the colour as my eye did. Still It provides a mysterious picture when out of context.

The resulting curved strips were assembled by the student a couple of days later - yes I know, not strictly a one day class. This is where the limitations of the curves came into play. Even though the design has been modified a lot, the feel of the original comes through.

The remaining pieces and off-cuts of the strips were combined into objects intended for hanging. The rule of kiln forming is to avoid all waste.

Now to shape the main piece. This will require watching, as so much of the piece will not be supported during the early and mid stages of the drape. I will need to make sure that I am not interrupted. So is it early morning, or late night?

Maryhill Burgh Halls

Among the things that have kept me busy is the submission for a community project and design and construction of modern windows for the Maryhill Burgh Halls. You can read about its importance in 19th century Glasgow at the Maryhill Burgh Halls website.

The proposal I put forward with another artist - Brian James Waugh - was to involve the Maryhill community in the thinking about what would represent modern Maryhill, and making preliminary designs. This is a kind of public awareness programme with a high degree of hands on in terms of designing and making small portions or maquettes. The second part was to draw up the final designs for 10 windows with the same kind of detail of representation that Stephen Adam did with the original 20 windows that he designed and made for the Burgh Halls.

These windows represent a social and industrial history in their images, which can be seen on the Maryhill Burgh Halls site. These window are being conserved by Mark Bamborough at Scottish Glass Studios.

Although the preparation and submission of our proposal took the best part of a week, we did not make it beyond the long list of eight. Now for some feedback from the selectors.

Encapsulating Leaded Glass Panels, 2

It has been a while - various excuses include moving house, preparing quotes, major Homes and Interiors, Scotland retail show, general inactivity, etc.

The leaded glass that was to be encapsulated has now been done.

This shows the inner view of the completed window sash - one of three. The frame was routed out to accommodate the extra width that the double glazing took up - in this case 12mm, so another 6mm had to be taken away from the frame. It also is now 18mm thick rather than the 8 or 9mm when it was simply leaded glass. This depth had to be taken from the frame too. The original check was about 12mm deep. An extra 10mm had to be taken away to accommodate the unit. This left a shallow area for a putty fillet of only 6mm.

When it is all painted, it will look very good.

The process can be seen here.

Encapsulating Leaded Glass Panels

Increasingly, people are being required to consider losing their stained glass, because of the thermal insulation requirements for new windows. A number of double glazing firms do not want to encapsulate the panels into the units.

There are some potential problems with incorporating newly made leaded glass panels into sealed units. But all the problems can be overcome by using different materials or different sizes of products.

The oxidation products from the putty fogs up the inside of the glass, so butyl rather than linseed oil mastic is required. As much as possible, repairs are simply fitted into the came and the leaves dressed down to the glass - the waterproof requirement no longer applies after all. In this way no new material is introduced into the sealed unit.

Most leaded glass windows need to be reduced in size to fit into sealed units. The amount of reduction is determined by the width of the spacers. The spacers that double glazing firms use are large - usually 25mm wide. However there are thinner spacers - 13mm wide - that can be used to reduce the amount of the window that needs to be removed to get it into the unit.

Most of the time, there is some kind of border at the edges of the window, or a continuation of design between adjoining windows that no damage is done to the image by small reductions. But just now I have a set of three windows that will not easily be reduced in size without damaging the design.

Fortunately, the clients agreed with me that the windows should be kept and that the sealed unit size should be altered to accommodate the glass. This does require the joiner to make new sashes and casements for this extension to the house. It also requires some adjustment to the size of the window opening to allow for the marginally wider window frames required. To reduce the amount of change, the leaves of the outer cames have been shaved to the hearts, giving about 5mm each side. The new sash frames are being made narrower to reduce the expansion required of the casements, and the mullions are being made a little narrower too.

The results are shown here.

St Silas's Church Hall

You all may have felt that the Summer holidays had really gotten to me and I am doing no work at all. In part that is right - we did have a quiet holiday with one of my daughters. But also we are preparing to move into a new flat. All that work getting things the way we want, rather than the way the previous owners wanted! We are mostly there now.

This is part of what I am working on just now. This the bottom half of a circular window - 1600mm dia. - for St Serf's Church in the Woodlands area of Glasgow. The upper part only required a few replacements and re-attaching tie wires for the two saddle bars.

But this bottom piece when cleaned, showed that much of the lead was in poor condition, with breaks and tears. Much of the broken glass had been repaired with pieces too small, and in some places the holes in the glass was simply repaired by placing putty over the holes and cracks. Just too much was required to allow the refurbishment I had planned.

The image above shows the glass partially cleaned and removed from the lead. Except in a few cases where the glass was too broken up to hold together, the broken pieces were taped together to act as patterns for the replacement glass. The broken glass has had replacements cut. The glass pieces are now ready to be placed in boxes to await their turn in the leading process.

Recent Activity

In spite of few postings, I have been doing things - collecting children from school, enjoying weekends, seeing some exhibitions - all the things to keep me a rounded person.  A number of repairs have been completed and I am waiting to start on a large church window repair.

In between, I have completed some bowls depicting flowers.  These require multiple firings to get the look I want, and there are some failures.  This is a sample of the ones I have done recently.

I have also worked on one of the spiral bowls too:

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

At last I have the mosaic cleaned and polished. It is ready for presentation to the school on Monday.

I have also received an invitation to a social lunch with the class on Wednesday of the following week. I am told this is an honour occasionally bestowed. I will need to dress up on both Monday and the Wednesday!

Thanks to the teachers, the students, Magda and Pearsons Glass for all the help.

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

Now that all the pieces are on the grid, it has been taken from the coloured drawing ready for cementing.

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

On Friday, the whole class arrived and presented me with a card:

I have put this up on one of the studio doors.

After the long weekend, day six of the project had only one panel to work on, as I filled in the few remaining bits of the first panel.

The day ended with almost all the mosiac pieces stuck to the grid on both the panels.

Now I have to fill in various corners and the cementing can begin.

Studio Visits

Yesterday I went to the Fife Open Studios. I went especially to see some glass studios of people that I have come to know, but have never seen where they work. So I got to see where Liz Rowley works. This is a purpose-built studio with windows on two sides, one of which makes a perfect light easel. I was assured that the studio is rarely so neat, but it still looked a workman-like place. She had some work in progress displayed and there were numerous photographs. It was fun for me to see how another person doing very similar work organises things. The studio talks were given by Eilidh Mackenzie who has some of her work displayed too.

I then took my wife on to see where Adrienne McStay works. The address is of a farm, but the setting, although rural, is not mixed with animals and equipment. Her studio is the old dairy of the farm, with interesting rounded ends to the building, and tiled floors. Surrounding her studio are a number of the wood and glass objects she creates. There also is a large canvas covered area to allow her to work outside. Also of course there is a furnace and an annealing oven for her glass work.

These open studio events are really interesting for the maker and general public alike. You can also purchase items direct from the artist, or commission work from them. We purchased a few things:

Apple

Amethyst Sea Stone

Green Sea Stone

These are, if you like modern takes on paperweights. I like them for their feel in my hand. Maybe these are my new worry beads.

The Fife Open Studios run until 5pm on Monday. Get along to some of them if you can

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

Friday was Day 5 of the school mosaic. A lot of work got done, but since the whole class visited in the afternoon, I did not get a photo of the work done on the two panels. Instead here are two photos of the students:

At work

Being photographed.

The whole class presented me with a card, which I will need to photograph to show. You can see the entrance to my studio in the background. I took the students into the studio to show them some of the work I do and answered questions about techniques, work practices, and prices.

After the holidays, the school will come back to finish the project.

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

Today we moved location. I was so focused on getting the task done, that I started in a room with little sound insulation between us and the artist next door. So we have moved to an area that will create less disturbance. But we made progress. All the major elements are laid out and a start was made on the grass and sky.

We got so involved that we were late in getting ready to go and forgot to take pictures of the people working on the panels. Still, on Friday everybody will be around so there will be a big group picture too.

Golfhill Primary School Mosaic

Day three:

This was the largest group so far. All 10 appeared. Thanks for teaching assistants - Mrs Jamieson you know hwo you are. And Thanks for friends to help out at short notice - Thanks Angela.

Progress is being made:

Some of the proud workers at the end of the day.

Of course someone had to get in on both photos!