I’ll post more details as and when….

There were a couple of others, one of which had some silver and gold fume in, but it didn’t strike very well, so I’ll leave it in the kiln for a few cycles and see if it comes up better.

And, that’s it so far. Some of these are going up to Mugdock Gallery (tomorrow, I think), and a couple may end up on Etsy. I’m off to get some more torch time…

Well, it started as a big marble, including some experimental gold and silver fumed implosions, but it didn’t work quite right, so got stretched into a teardrop shape. Looking at it sitting on the punty, I had this image of it as a kind of seed, growing roots out of the bottom, and a big flower spike with some sort of alien flower on the top.

Since I’d already had a go at those soft glass orchids, I decided on a kind of fantasy-exaggerated paphiopedilum flower. I realised it would need some leaves too, if it wasn’t going to look too out of balance.

Close-up of Flower

The colours are all mostly Trautman Art Glass, mainly over clear, but sometimes clear-encased. Except for the roots, which get that really accurate greyish silver sheen from TV tube supports. They’re borosilicate stand-offs to insulate TV tubes from their frames and casings.

The Whole Thing

The whole thing is about 30 x 20 x 20cm, and gave me a few problems with annealing, and avoiding checking, etc. I put it together over about a week on and off, but I think I will take a lot less time with the next one, now I know to Plan Ahead…

The Arty Shot

I particularly like this image, because you can see the curve of the stem, and how the flower sits in proportion to the rest of the piece.

True to form, it didn’t go into the oven until the evening before the auction. We collected it, and a bowl made by Gillian (also only annealed that night), and whisked them over to Edinburgh College of Art in time for the cut-off at mid-day. I’m please to say that both pieces were sold, and raised £130 for the Scottish Glass Society.

Orchids - in soft glass!

I want to develop these a bit, and try to get somewhere close to realism, one day…

Meanwhile, we’re conscious that Christmas is lurking just over the horizon, and we really need to seriously start making for the full month of shows we have scheduled in November. Gillian has a huge list in the office of stuff we need to make, so I’m hoping to get started on it as soon as I finish this months scientific glass for SUERC.

Of course, I still have to put some stuff in the Shop section, and put more images in the gallery, and….and….

It’ll all happen. Eventually.

This class has definitely been a bit of a revelation to me; it seems I got out of it everything I was hoping for, and more besides. There was waaaay too much going on to describe it all, so I’ll give you some pictures to save some words.

And then, the stuff he showed us how to make. Flowers;

Glassblowers;

And a Quite Remarkable Fairy:

I even had a wee go myself. None of this stuff survived for posterity, as we had no kilns for garaging and annealing, so things pretty much died on the bench shortly after photographing:

I have a million (ok, less than a million) other photos, which form a pretty comprehensive set of photo tutorials for all this stuff, but you’d be bored by that, now, wouldn’t you…

So now, it’s down to a spot of practicing, and we’ll see where all this new stuff leads.

So today we saw the head, body and legs of a glassblower made, and also a fairy. Seeing the common methods and ‘units’ used is incredibly helpful, as it lets you imagine immediately how to use the techniques in your own designs.

With a break around lunchtime to taste a drop of kosher wine, it was a bit of a relief to get some fresh air – the studio has no active ventilation.

Some of the components Gianni makes are quite large, and require garaging in order to prevent them cooling and cracking – this is all fine, but the student torch stations have no kilns, so it is difficult for us to try to replicate what we are being shown, as we cannot garage at the bench. Oh well, we’ll just have to wait until we get home….

We all got quite a bit of practice-time, which seemed mostly to be used practicing heads:

which Gianni reckons look like ‘a bunch of mafia’. Thanks, Gianni…

Gianni announced half-way through the afternoon that he was going to make a tree, and we should all make something to hang on it, so it could be entered for the auction this weekend. My mind went blank in terror. Still working on that one…