The Shard

I had already given it quite a lot of thought but a train journey to London yesterday to whiz up the Shard gave me time to do some scribbling.  I took lots of strips of paper in the right proportion and came up with several options to show Julia so I emailed her this.

The House

It was good to meet Juliet and see the house as it meant I could get an idea of her taste in design and colour and measure the space available.  She is obviously a big retro fan and has lots of stylish furniture and flooring to fit the era of the house.

I gave her a box of photo's of mosaics I'd made in the past so that she could pick out her favourites which helped a bit more.  I'm sure we'd have chatted for hours had we not got other commitments as we seem to have a lot in common including both liking art deco design and sparkly things.

The conclusions we came to were that the mosaic should measure 130cm x 20cm to fit on the wall where the numbers are now, be made from large pieces of glass including some iridescent in the hot colour range with a dark background and with large quirky numbers.

That should keep me quiet for a while!

Possible Commission

Last year I had listed some of my work onto Etsy which is a great site for selling hand made items.  It has a massive audience but my buyer lived only a mile or so away on Shoreham Beach.  She likes to buy from local artists and found an oak key hook rack with glass beach huts decorating it that I had made.

She said at the time that she might want to commission a mosaic for her doorstep so I cycled round to have a look at the house and came to the conclusion that a mosaic on the doorstep would be wasted as it would hardly be seen!  I suggested having one incorporating the house number next to the porch and Juliet agreed that was a good idea.  Nothing more happened for several months but today I had an email saying she'd like to go ahead so I arranged to visit her on Saturday to discuss it together.

Silver Clay Workshop

I had a great day yesterday learning how to use silver clay.  I went with my friend Kate and her friend Carrie to the venue in Newick about 30 miles away.

It was a large shed in a lovely garden and I couldn't believe how well equipped it was.  Paula running the workshop had set it up with everything five people could possibly need to learn to use the stuff.  She has been using it for years so had hundreds of samples to show us and is a very good teacher.  If you want to try it go to www.learnsilverclay.co.uk

We were given a tiny 16g packet of the clay worth £40 but it's surprising how much you can squeeze out of that... It's like a fine porcelain which you can mould, emboss, cut and shape as you like before firing in a kiln or with a torch.  That eliminates the clay and you are left with 99% silver (a lot more pure than sterling silver).  You can polish the resulting piece or give it a matte finish using a wire brush.   Hours of fun!

       
       and there's still a little bit left.

Collected the fused glass

I picked up my fused glass this morning.  It's exciting to see how the dichroic glass colours look when melted into the base and the light catcher looks good with the light shining through from the window.  There are some dichroic pieces in it which only show with reflected light so it could be used as a table mat instead.

Glass Fusing Workshop

Yesterday I went on a one day workshop to learn how to fuse glass.  I had a great day making ten small pendant pieces, one circular light catcher and one curved glass rainbow shape to stand on the window sill.

It was a bit of a shame because I already know how to cut glass and wanted to learn about the fusing but we had to leave everything we'd made to be fused at a later date when there was space in the kiln.  So apart from the answers to the questions I asked I didn't really learn anything new.  Apparently the kiln has to be programmed to heat up at a certain speed, maintain the correct temperature for the correct time and cool down at the correct speed.  The position in the kiln and the length of firing time affects how much the glass will melt and how smooth the end result will be.

I'm looking forward to picking up the finished pieces in a couple of weeks.

Beaded Brooch

There are a couple of bead shops in Brighton full of shiny things and findings to make them into jewellery.  I went there today for a one hour class in how to make a brooch with beads wired together.  It was quite fiddly but not too difficult once you got the hang of it.  This is what I made