I have been neglecting the ol' blog for a while, deadlines keeping me busy. What I've been up to...
Ceramics
Changing my mind at least 3 times about what I wanted to make as a final outcome for this project didn't seem helpful at the time, however, it did teach me ALOT about clay which on reflection made it worthwhile. Originally I wanted to make a series of napkin rings.. sacked that idea after realizing it'd take me about 5 minutes and wasn't really that challenging. Next I decided on making 3 plates which would stack to form a cake stand.. things were going well until the clay started to dry out way too quickly whilst I was building. Cracks at 2am the morning before the kiln went on wasn't ideal.. lesson learnt, I decided to smash up everything I'd done over the last 3 days and start over. In an attempt to fix things I sketched anything that came into my head for an hour and ended with some pot designs I liked. I thought about what it was I'd enjoyed doing over the last 2 tester weeks and picked the teacup I'd made as inspiration. I'm happy with what I've made now, although the medium sized pot is my least favourite...
Wood
Magazine rack is fini! I wouldn't actually pick this for my own home.. I think it looks a little too clunky.. if that's a word. Similar to ceramics I learnt a lot from this project. Having not thought about anything mathematical since my GCSE's this was tough.. you HAVE to work to the closest mil with woodwork, the technicians were a huge help. The two techniques I ended up using the most were routing (similar to using a jigsaw but involves making templates to follow) and woodturning which is tougher than it looks, once you've got the knack though it's quite fun.
Glass
I've just about completed this project, after a bit of drilling and gluing I will (fingers crossed) have a working glass clock. I kept the design quite simple as 8 days really isn't that much time to get anything substantial done, particularly when relying on kilns and glass orders. I started with about 60 random shapes/colours of bullseye glass and narrowed them down to those which I thought complimented each other. Next, I photographed various arrangements and picked my final design to fuse together in the kiln. For the base I cut out a circle of float glass and sandblasted a basic clock design onto it.. voila!
