Open Studios ends with a deluge of rain!

What a weekend of contrasts it has been! Saturday was fresh and chilly, but a pleasant day and my studio was busy with visits from people in the locality. I am glad to say I met some really nice and very interesting people and caught up with some of my neighbours.

I emptied a colourful kiln full of flowers on Saturday morning, they have come out very well and as well as making up swags of flowers for sale in Insideout I am also going to keep some back to make an applique glass panel, I think they will lend themselves well to this.

I prepared lots of fusing tester panels on Saturday afternoon to be fired on Sunday. Sunday morning I loaded up the kiln and paid close attention to the cycled and the rapid cooling phase of fusing glass as I have been suffering from devitrification problems when fusing with recycled glass (where the glass crystalises when it is cooling, creating a matt granulated appearance to the back side of the fused piece). Hopefully I got it right today, we shall see tomorrow!

Today has been relentlessly rainy, I had to empty my gazebo gallery early as everything was getting soggy and windswept! I only had one visitor on my last day of Devon Open Studios,  she stayed for quite along time as it was raining SO hard she would have got drenched and so we had a great chat! But I would not have wanted to go anywhere myself today and as the gazebo was out of action it was probably for the best. But I got lots of panels cemented and got to watch a film with my kids as well, which is the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon anyway!

My studio can go back to being my own private little space again now for another year! Thanks for everyone who helped me advertise my event, handed out leaflets and put up posters at their work. Thanks also to everyone who came to visit me its been fun.

Finished pieces, new commissions and small rewards

Did I say I was going to update this everyday of Devon Open Studios? Ha, ha! how over ambitious! Well, first things first, my frit experiment mentioned in the last post came out well, as you can see, and I am going to use this effect to represent the sunrise bouncing off the mountainside of my next commission.

My acid etched Islamic inspired panel is leaded up and waiting to be cemented and I have cut the glass for a new fish geometric panel, they are coming on nicely.

I have made a full size cartoon of my next mountain commission and I am just trying to position the sunrise so that is looks right AND allows me to cut the sky from one continuous piece of glass.

The customers came to collect their glamorous Art Deco door panel (hopefully it will fit into their front door like a glove) and no sooner had that panel left the studio than my next clients came in to discuss the design for the first panel for their new build home, the front door panel (then hopefully 4 window panels to follow).

I have had lots of other visitors, fellow glass artists, stained glass students, neighbours and friends. I have swapped some bunting and a bird cage for a  new hair do from my hairdresser friend and drank tea with ceramicist friend Cresta Glass and it has been a good few days.

I had a resident artist with me today, who coloured me a lovely picture of my studio!

I filled the kiln with painted pieces of glass for flower garlands and bird cage panels to be sold at InsideOut and they will be fired tomorrow.

Oh and last, but not least, when I turned on the computer this morning I had a great email from stained glass news informing me I had won their panel of the month with my Boats on the River Teign Panel, which is was a lovely surprise and a great bit of advertising for my business, thank you very much!

There is still Friday and the weekend to come and see me, as you can tell, its a busy studio and a great chance to see an artist at work. Opening Times/directions   

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experimenting with recycled glass frit

Open Studios again today and amongst other visitors was a customer I have been working on a design for and we chose the glass and the effects we want today.

This led me to put a recycled frit tester panel in the kiln with some experimental pendants today, both use recycled waste glass which has been smashed up with a hammer into small pieces and dust and its busy cooking in the kiln……….we will see what comes out tomorrow

There is still lots of time to come and visit me at Open Studios, please click here for dates and times.

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Cementing and Soldering Stained Glass

Open studios rumbles along and I have spent my day cementing and soldering.

My big glamorous Art Deco door panel is now cemented to make it weather proof and we have to wait a couple of days for that to harden off now…

My acid etched panel is coming on nicely, the patterns have come out very well.

I have almost finished a birthday commission Love Bird piece

Oh and I have a new panel with fused bird inclusions and lino cut prints ready to be framed now! 

Strange fact of the day = ALL  my visitors today for Open Studios do glass as a hobby or are students of glass (as we all are of course!)

There is still lots of time to come and see me, click here for details of opening times and so on.

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5 a day, including artists!

Devon Open Studios was back on again today and I had 5 visitors again. I have had the same amount everyday! 

I managed to get a new front door panel commission leaded up and ready to cement. Acid etched another panel with designs inspired by Islamic art and ceramics and was given an art lecture by my youngest daughter who took me through a detailed monologue about her new series of paintings from pre school – delightful!

My good friend Ulrika– Igraine and her daughter came to visit, Ulrika is a fabulous ceramicist exhibiting with EVA for Open Studios and local artist Kath Hadden popped by too, lovely to speak to some fellow artists!

There is still plenty of time to visit me at open studios, for more details click here, I am open until the 23rd September

Open Studios up and running!

Going to do a regular blog throughout Devon Open Studios  to show everyone how projects are coming along. These aren’t going to be very wordy, you get the idea from the photos!

Lovely sunshine this weekend and I have done quite alot of experimenting with lino cut printing onto glass (limited success) and cut a piece for Amber with her own design and she did some printing with me, with far better results! Did some conventional glass painting (which was fired in the kiln today), cut the glass for a new front door commission, laid the glue resist for an acid etched kitchen panel, had lunch with my family and talked to my lovely neighbour Kate.

Had 10 visitors this weekend, which probably isn’t very good but it was very sunny, so I hope everyone was at the beach enjoying the last of the sun instead!  Still plenty of time to come and visit, click here for times and days

My tree has turned into a monster, but you can still add your wishes to it!

I had to go and take my Wishing Tree down today from its sea front home in Teignmouth as the TRAIL exhibition has ended . I had no idea that it would be so popular and we estimate it has around 2,500 wishes (based on the number of rags we put in the bins) I could not keep up with demand and many thanks to Liz Lockyear, the organiser of the event for endlessly filling the bin for me and to Roger Smith (founders of TAAG ) for mending my sculpture when it got so heavy with wet wishes in the rain that it fell over! TRAIL had to run without funding from anywhere this summer and it is in danger of having to stop running, which seems very sad when the public enjoy the exhibition so much.

Anyway, it really doesn’t look like a tree any more; more like a Fraggle Rock monster! But it is now safely erected in my garden, wishes intact and you are cordially invited to add your own wish to my tree/monster during Devon Open Studios which runs from the 8th – 23rd September.

My Kaleidoboat sculpture (which won TRAIL in 2010) will also be on display and I have moved it to my front garden so people can easily find my house!

The slide show takes you through the wishing tree from the start till now, who knows what will happen to it next!

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