... And Everything.

I left you last time with this...

...a seemingly random picture of something awaiting firing inside my kiln.  I guess an explanation is needed.

I make a lot of different things.  I make stained glass; I make fused glass; and I make lampworked glass.  But I would say that even after all this time of making I don't have a signature style.
I think I am seemingly too busy making items that I think may sell, will sell, and generally do sell (even if it is sometimes eventually) to try and develop a style.

As a result, I can honestly say that whenever I attend a craft market to sell, I have something new with me - but I get the impression it hinders me in that I appear have little time to experiment and work things out.  Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy making all that I make, in that it gives me an outlet for some of my ideas.
The latest small experiment are the little police boxes - you can see a picture of them on my Facebook page here - Mini Police box suncatchers

And my Etsy shop is liberally stocked with various random gift-able items including items made from recycled bottles, art glass plates and dishes, and Lampwork beads and jewellery; so I decided a few weeks ago that I needed to try and work on a style.

Anyhow, I seem to be drawn to many different things to inspire me, but I love the work of the late Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak - especially her owls ( if you're interested take a look here - http://canadianart.ca/artists/kenojuak-ashevak/) . (I'm not only glass obsessed, but owl and dragon obsessed too (as my Pinterest boards will testify.)  I thought I would try and do a version of one of her owls as a present to myself.
That first picture was my starting point - brightly coloured very finely ground glass powder layered on clear glass and then fired.

Then, time for a little enamel painting - in order to add details.  This was more awkward than I anticipated, as it's a very long time sine I've used a paintbrush for fine details, and I only had a cheap set of paintbrushes (I think I bought them to use to paint glue on the glass for something or other, and to paint flux onto my copper foil work) so you can imagine how 'fine' the brush was!  I ended up with a thick lined owl!
Never mind - I'll leave it to dry and scrape off what I don't want.
Lots of scraping and quite sometime later it was ready for the next firing - to set the enamel.

Well, that came out OK!

Not bad for a first attempt at painting with enamel (well I was really pleased with it, after all it was for ME!
But it wasn't yet finished!   ...The final chapters of my Kenojuak Ashevak inspired owl will be in my next post...
Don't forget to come back and see ;)