The piece as it looked this morning. After sandblasting the glass and marking it with a pen, I paint the first layer and fire it. Specifically--I wipe Reusche Stencil Black 1059 onto the sandblasted surface with a dampish paper towel and then wipe the excess off. THEN! I go over all the magic maker lines with a thin liner brush and paint them in....for your glass folks who know something about glass painting, this is my version of doing the first matte and trace but I am total cheater since I am using sandblasted glass. (The exception is the naked bits which I painted directly rather than wipe. Why? Because it seemed like a good idea??)I fire at 1213 F. UP in 25 mins, open the kiln to 1050 and then put two bits of fire brick in to crack the door very slightly (otherwise it will take up to five hours to cool which is not necessary). It cools (and anneals) in about 2 or 3 hours this way.
Then, I went into it with a flexible shaft engraver using diamond ball burrs and also 3-M diamond files and started defining the highlights. This technique is so physically taxing (even after years of doing it often), I type this with almost totally numb fingertips and you can see I did not finish today.
Some close ups. Hey! Don't get any ideas about me going fast. Each of these areas will ultimately be two or three pieces thick to get in all the color and detail I am lookin' to get. So while a head may be blue now....it won't be later--this is akin to an underpainting and has little bearing on how it will look when its finished.
By the way....I hate clowns.
5 comments:
clowns hate you too even if you do make them look so good
I'm amazed at the amount of work this takes. I had no idea. I thought it was relatively simple, but, wow, there are steps I didn't even imagine. Good for you! To think I gave myself tendinitis in both wrists just stripping paint off some wood.
But you're wrong about clowns. Clowns are truly wonderful. If you think you hate clowns it's because you haven't seen the good ones. I highly -- highly as in "this is a religious experience" -- recommend you see Bello in real life. He's with the Big Apple Circus now. Really. Go see him. He'll make you laugh and cry.
OK--I am so sorry I said that! Most clowns, I don't get. But some are great and I was just bein' glib--probably not a good idea on the internet, but there ya go!
And yeah--its quite a process getting glass to have an image on it!
I always challenge anti-clown bias, ever since seeing Bello at Ringling Bros. a few years ago. The clowns were so wonderful, they gave me hope for humanity.
Now, if you want to make fun of fat people, go ahead!
Judith, I was astonished when my daughter (ACAD student - Calgary, AB) said you were open to sharing your technique - I thought "no way". Now I know why you share,..... because there's no way anyone can duplicate your work YOU'RE AMAZING!! I suspect you developed/discovered these techniques yourself..... Thanks for sharing!!!! The clowns actually creep me out, but hey that's life hey?
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