Family in glass

Three dimensional glass fusion object. I had made the first three figures before, back in 2015. Rianne was expecting our first grandson, Jake. But there is another lovely boy now, Willem. So I had to add another figure.
And another cat, first there was Noortje, now there is also Sammy.
A lovely family.

Magpie in glass

I had finished this glass object some years ago, but it rested in a drawer in my house.
I never had the time to make the basis. During christmas holidays I finally got around finishing it. It now has a teakwood base.
The object is made from small stripes of coulored glass. When the sun shines through it is even more beautiful that the picture shows.

Glass postdoc object

I made this glass object for a few collegues of Rianne, the two girls who helped her during the presentation and organisation of the Doctoral presentation.
The themes that show in her thesis are also represented in this glass object (about 25x25 cm large).
That was an easy one for me, as I also made the bookcover itself.
The flowing colours represent the mass of biological data, the form represents a 3 dimensional grid that is the means to visualise and organize the data.

Glass horse

I finally put the glass horse head on a cherrywood sockle.
We cut down a cherry tree in our garden a few years ago. The wood is now dry enough to use for these kind of things.
The piece is now standing on our window sill.

Glass Magpie

My latest glass work. A magpie. With the original sketch.
The piece is finished now, and waiting to go into the oven.
It is an experiment, as I used coloured strips of glass to form the bird. And I used dark colours: blue, red, green glass strips. I am curious how it will look like when the sun shines through.

Glass Fruit Bowl

My latest Glass project, a fused fruit bowl. Made of several sheets of glass, with coloured enamels in between. It was for my mothers birthday, but it took a little longer, the birthday is aready a2 months overdue. The bowl had to be fired twice, and the heating spirals of the oven were broken in between.

Glass horse

After the mixed results of the last glass vases, I returned o familiar ground.
A horse head, sheet glass with mixed emaille colours, and small stripes of glass on top.

Yesterday I finished the base glass, added the colours, and made the horse's manes.
Here is an image of the design, the statue will be about 30 cm high.

Pate de verre vases

I made these two vases in "pate de verre" technique.
It's an ancient technique in which small glass particles are glued into a mold, and then heated.
It's very hard to make. I started with this technique in May last year or something like that.
This is the 4th trial of the blue bowl, and the 2nd version of the brown one.
And even though the brown one looks good on the picture, it has a deep cut in the bottom.
Keep in mind that each version cost at least 3 weeks (monday evenings in atelier) to make.
We found that the oven is probably not balanced enough for this type of heating.
I don't know if I will ever do this again.

Another glass failure

Here are the results of the last cast for that Paté de Verre vases.
Again a failure. 2 vases ready for the waste bin.
Due to a malfunction of the oven, the glass heated up too high, and the glass collected itself on the bottom.
For the blue vase this was the 4th trial without result.

Perhaps hard to believe, but yesterday I made 2 new molds for the next try.
It should work once eventually......

Glass eagle

My latest glass object.
Actually, I finished it months ago, but I never had time to make the pedestall.
The bird is about 35 cm high on its cherrywood plinth.
All made of sheet glass, tacked together in the oven.
The colours are of glass enemals, pressed in between the sheets.
The wings are made of tiny strips of glass, vertically positioned and fused with the backing glass sheet.

It was a real pleasure to make this piece.

Glass flowers and vase

 I finally had time to finish my glass vase and glass flowers. I made the vase in spring, and the flowers just before the holidays. But I still had to make the stems (copper wire, soldered together and painted). Well, here it is. It looks better than expected.

I took the opportunity to make an ink drawing of the vase, for #inktober, day 15.
But after 15 drawings, I know now that I don't want to keep up the pace.
The quality is getting less, and I want time for other hobbies.
So I will do the #inktober posts less regularly.

Failed glass vase

This should have been a beautiful vase. In frosted, sugar like semi-translucent light blue glass.
With yellow and red patterned bulbs sticking out.
Made in a difficult, elaborate and expensive glass fabrication method called "pâte de verre".

In a few pictures I can show you the procedure: first you make the model in clay, then you cast a mixture of gypsum and silicosis around, to produce the mold.
The second picture shows the mold, after two weeks of drying, and after I removed the clay model.
The third picture shows how to fill the mold: the holes are filled with fine-ground powder-like red and yellow glass, held together with wallpaper glue.
Then adding layers of sand like glassparticles, size about 1-2 mm. again bound  by glue. The total thickness is about 5-6mm, made in two layers.

As the glass would sink to the bottom when heated, I had to make an inner mold as well. In this case by adding pure loose gypsum in the middle, lightly compacted (picture 4). We had to wait a few weeks to have it dry again, and finally it went into the oven.

But..... it failed. The glass did not melt enough, the top ring was okay, but the lower parts fell apart when I removed the mold (picture 5).

Here you see the remnants of what should have been a lovely vase.
All that's left is a glass crown, which I show at the top. Just to show how it could have looked like.

Pate de verre

 

I am now working on new projects in glass. The procedure is called "pâte de verre" and it's an old french technique of making glass objects.

First you make a model in clay, then you cast gypsum around it, to form a mold.

The mold is polished and reworked, and then you grind glass. The grinded glass is sieved into different sizes, and (depending on the type of ground) you mix it with an adhesive. I use wallpaperglue. Then you lay down one or more layers of the glass into the mold, and it's heated.

These objects are glass flowers, to be fitted into the vase I made two weeks ago. I still have to make the stems.

Glass vase

My latest glass works piece. A vase for three flowers.
Layered sheet glass with enamel coloured layers in between, tack-fused. Tack-fused means fused at a lower temperature. In this way the sheets are not completely molten into each other, and still visible as separate sheets.
The flowers are there only for show, I notice that the holes practically impossible to clean, too small.
So live flowers will not be possible. I have started with some glass flowers, and will use a new technique called Pâte de verre. It was time to move on after a few Tack-fused objects.

Fused glass dish

One of my other projects: glassworks. I recently finished this fused glass dish, 30x30cm.
It consists of two layers of fused glass, with glass enamel in between. The supports are made from bent sandblasted glass. It looks lovely on our living room table.

Christmas surprise

Another glass object, made specially for Rianne, Bob and our future grandchild.
This was the Sinterklaas surprise present, but it took some finishing. The pedestal was not ready and during mounting the head of one of the objects broke. But I managed to do the repairs, and I was able to present the statue to Bob and Rianne yesterday, during the family tradition Christmas dinner.

Horus glassobject

I had a rough and busy week, a lot of kilometers on the German motorways for business.
No chance to produce anything decent. Today I finally had some hours that I could spend on hobbies, and I made the pedestal for a glass fusion object I finished some months ago.
It's called Horus, and is about 25cm wide and 40 high.
It's standing on our windowsill now.

Glassworks: haantje

My latest glass object: a little cock.
I had already finished it some weeks ago, but I still had to fix it to a plinth.
We tore down an cherry tree two years ago, and the wood serves well for these small plinths.
But it's hard wood: it takes some effort to saw a piece off.
The object was a present for my Mothers birthday, but I am almost 2 months overdue by now. :)

Old cats

We made two little memorials in leaded glass for our late cats Marsha and Yana. They are buried below the maple tree, where they used to sit in the shade on warm sunny days. 

We are very happy with our new family members: Mitzie and Miyo. But the old ones are not forgotten. 

Horus returns from the furnace

Horus came out of the furnace looking great. I am really glad how it turned out. Unfortunately the picture is not that good, I hope to make a decent one after I made the cherry-wood sockle. That will be a challenge in itself, the bottom part will have to be incorporated.