Sand casting and line work

Silvia's class wrapped up after a wonderful week of experimenting and making with a really super class! I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to work with Silvia - such a generous teacher, we all had such a fun week with her! 

The final technique shared by Silvia was decals and powder printing. Both of which are techniques I currently use in my own work. 

Above Silvia is demonstrating transferring decals to glass using water, and also a product that allows you to screen print without using photosensitive emulsion. The blue drawing fluid is painted onto the screen and then coated with the red screen filler. The red dries, the blue washes out and allows the powder or glass enamel to pass through onto the glass. Great for very simple line drawings, and it was beautiful to be able to transfer painterly sketchy lines from paper to glass - something I am always seeking to do in my own work. 

The decals were also an assortment of images and text that Silvia had brought herself- this meant there was no particular attachment to any of the imagery and let people loosen up and play around a bit with the decals. Through the class I'd moved away from the figure a bit just to experiment, but I went back to using different shapes and line qualities to make up small sketches of the female form. These were just fun and quick little pieces approaching imagery of the form in a way that I usually wouldn't. 

Painting the screen with drawing fluid

Printing the line of the figure in black powder through the screen on clear glass

Decals layered on two sheets of clear glass

Cutting decals to add shapes of colour

Black powder lines and flakes of coloured glass

Painting with powder

We also had a go at sand casting - pressing an object into tightly packed sand and then pouring molten glass into the space. This is then annealed (cooled slowly) as you would a blown glass vessel or fusing. The sand can then be washed away when cooled. I chose to make a little Lybster village - the flat tall houses in the village with simple lines and doorways are so charming. 

Small foam models

Pouring into the negative space in the sand

Varying temperatures cooling in the sand 

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A few more projects from other students 

Divesting a mould

Cast bubble wrap

Cast soaps

Cast taken from an alginate and then wax from the body

Decals layered together

Cast glass textures from a collage of leaf pieces

Sand cast glass eggs!

A collection of teenie tiny bottles

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I've been in exploring lovely Edinburgh the last few days, back up to Lybster soon for another week of classes !