Translating Paintings

Every once in a while an artist comes into the studio to ask me to translate a sketch, a painting, or sometimes an idea into glass. Abbi sent her husband to me a few months ago to enquire if I could cast a fan coral image into glass. We went over the possibilities and an drawing was made to consider. The drawing was translated into carved out fibre board, and the glass frit poured into it and fused at about 850 for three hours. It came out pretty well.

The next project was to have two of her paintings translated into glass of the same dimensions (ca. 360 x 720mm each). The paintings were brought to me as references:

Abbi's paintings

So I began working on them, choosing glass that would be similar. Each morning when she came to work, she stopped by to see the progress (if any) and comment on what was available to see.

I decided that since these would be standing in a base on a plinth, that they should be 9mm thick, requiring dams to restrict their flow. I also decided to to fuse the main colours flat and then add frit to give some variegation in colour to the whole in a second firing. After seeing the flat fusing Abbi decided that more frit was required and of a variety of colours, especially on the stems.

The result of this collaboration can be seen below:

You can also see that sometimes we get a little snow, even though we are the same latitude as Moscow. Good old Gulf Stream - don't fail us now!

I don't know Abbi well although she has been working in the building for about five years now. She is confined to a wheel chair by some wasting disease. It is much more difficult to understand her speech now than earlier and she no longer can propel her chair by herself. In spite of these difficulties, she is preparing for an exhibition in mid March.

This has been a good collaboration for me. In spite of her difficulties, Abbi has continued to work at her art. It is an encouragement for me - one; to stop moaning about difficulties and two; to continue with optimism.

A Powder and Frit Fused Panel

An example of how the studio and equipment hire works in the studio occurred yesterday. A few weeks ago an artist from South West Scotland rang up and booked the kiln and a studio bench for a day. Thursday was agreed upon after discussion of her requirements. I essentially provided the space for her to realise her work in glass.

She worked with a sheet of 10mm float glass and powders which she over layed onto the glass with a small canister with a fine screen as the top. Throughout the day the image began to appear. The real difficulty in doing this work is judging the depth of colour that the powders will produce. Obvious piles of powder and frit will produce more dense colour, but it is not always easy to tell where the powder is thin, even when done over a light box.

This is the panel prepared and sitting in the kiln ready to fire.

We discussed the differing firing characteristics of our two kilns. Where she would go to 795C for a full fuse of float glass in her 400mm square kiln, I go to 835C for 40 minutes in my 2 metre kiln to get an invisible seal of two or more sheets of float. Since this was already a single layer, that temperature and soak was not necessary. She wanted a bit of texture, but not a rough one, so we settled on 825C for 10 mins. She was also unsure the effect of size, ca. 650 by 750mm and thickness in relation to the smaller work she does in her kiln. So we settled on a modification of Stone's schedule for 10mm glass - a little slower heat up and a little longer annealing soak (a lot longer actually).

I'm happy to say that when she came in this afternoon, she was pleased with the result.

The finished piece still in the kiln.

The piece came out of the kiln with a profile so that the frit pieces were noticeable, but not sharp or lumpy. Everything was fire polished and shiny. Notice how much brighter and more intense the colours are after firing. The variations in density of colour is related both to the thickness of the powder application and to the amount of frit applied. Some is more obvious than in other areas. Where she applied frit over the powder, small clear halos appeared. She had planned for this and compensated by applying more powder over the fritted areas.

This is one example of how I work with an experienced glass artist. Artists and enthusiasts who are not so experienced get a bit more involvement from me.