Thursday, October 29, 2009

Red Jelly


This a small piece of red flashed glass about 140mmx140mm,rescued from an old victorian window.Its been sandblasted and painted and has some silver stain to highlight the details.This old glass seems to me to gives a better gradation of shades when im sandblasting than modern red flashed glass that ive found.Its also very thin,about 2mm or so.Wish there was a ready supply of it. See some more at Lustrousglass.com

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Little Boxes


As promised here is a slight diversion from the usual glass theme. These are some of the boxes i turned for the Newmarket brocante that i wrote about in a previous post. They are all made from Yew except for the top left hand one which is made from Zebrano. The Yew ive had for nearly twenty years so it was well seasoned by the time it ended up on the lathe.Yew tends to come in small section so boxes suit it well.Yew is not widely grown because of its poisonous berries,which cows are fond of and which has been know to kill them.Hence they came to be grown in graveyards and small parks and other such places.Yew is classified as a softwood but is harder than a lot of the timber classified as hardwoods.It makes for good turning because it is such a hard dense timber.It also finishes very well,doesnt need any sealer,just a handfull of shavings held against the object as it spins on the lathe.All in all a lovely timber.It also has a history of being held sacred by the Druids but thats another story. I should be back on the glass by the next post but if you want to look at some try Lustrousglass.com

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Blue Dragon

This is a panel ive done for over a door before i got the kiln.It measures about 100mm by 700mm and is done mostly in undecorated glass with some sandblasted blue on green for the head,teeth and feet.The body is done in different blues,the background in bright yellow waterglass and some red/yellow Kokomo for other bits.He looks more happy than blue,maybe St George has just been polished off..Check out Lustrousglass.com for more panels

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Sun Flowers

This is a panel ive done to go in the front door of my girfriends house.Its the one ive used on my profile pic.Its all in unpainted glass with a little bit of sandblasting.The surround is a dark blue Desag,the centre is a tangerine coloured piece of handmade glass , the flowerheads selected for the interesting bits of colour variation and the stalks are that blue-green Kokomo that works well as plant foliage.Its about 750mm square. The glass looks a bit grainy because we held a sheet behind it to get the photo due to the background noise..Theres more to see at Lustrousglass.com