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Tuesday 28 August 2012

Hertfordshire visual arts open studios

Living in Hertfordshire has many advantages but each year an excellent opportunity comes along to get along and visit many skilled artists as they open their studios to visitors across the whole of Hertfordshire.  I am a member of the HVA (Herts Visual Arts) group myself although my shed doesn't really allow for visitors but thought that I would post the link to the site so that other people might take up the opportunity to see people at work.  There is a hard copy brochure available but since it is almost September now, you can find opening times and locations online.

http://www.hvaf.org.uk/Open-Studios/Open-Studios-2012

Sunday 26 August 2012

Seaside panel is on its way to my customer

This panel began many months ago.   I had been asked if I could create a sense of the seaside with sand, starfish and rockpools.  Rather than using just flat pieces of glass, beautiful as it is, I wanted to create some depth and texture by creating some fused glass pebbles which I wanted to place in the centre to create the rockpool.

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The starfish was formed with brass wire then filled with a coral coloured glass powder. The mussel shell is an extremely dark purple that doesn't really show in the photo but it is covered with a layer of iridescent glass that gives it a real pearly finish. 

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So with all the experimenting, fusing and emailing, it has taken some time to reach a design and get the panel finally finished. I really enjoyed making the piece and am pleased that it is now on its way to meet the kind lady that commissioned it. 

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Tuesday 21 August 2012

Singing Bird in a tree




Centredetail_2 by Ajay Jayne
This is a new design that I have been working on based on a singing thrush in a rather fantastic looking tree with giant leaves. I'm very fond of blackwork embroidery as well as patchwork and woodcuts so this piece has influences from all of those sources.  Lots of colours were tried for the surrounding borders but the browns and greens are still my favourites. 

Ingarden

There are so many poems about Thrushes but this is one of my favourites.

The Thrush's Nest


Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large and round,
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise, and I drank the sound
With joy; and often, an intruding guest,
I watched her secret toil from day to day - 
How true she warped the moss to form a nest,
And modelled it within with wood and clay;
And by and by, like heath-bells gilt with dew,
There lay her shining eggs, as bright as flowers,
Ink-spotted over shells of greeny blue;
And there I witnessed, in the sunny hours,
A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly,
Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky. 

John Clare

Thursday 9 August 2012

Glass course in Bristol with Chris Ainslie

Something I'm always keen to do, despite having made items for quite some time now, is to spend  some hours attending courses with other people to add to my glass working skills.  It's all very pleasant working in my shed at the bottom of the garden with the cat for company but sometimes there is nothing like meeting new people and being in a workshop somewhere else exploring  new ideas and learning something new.

The end of July saw me on a train out of London and taking a whole weekend out in Bristol at the Creative Glass Guild exploring a workshop led by the interesting and encouraging Chris Ainslie.  While Chris's web site lists him as an engraver, which he certainly does excellently,  his interest in painting glass using enamels, silver stain and the usual glass paint is another of his areas of accomplishment that were explored over the two day sessions.  There are pictures that I need to post of the experiments carried out when I have had the opportunity to get them leaded and photographed but I am keen to share the information before August quickly turns into September.  I haven't said much about the techniques since it seems only fair that anyone interested should have a look at the courses for themselves.

Yellow Green Seedhead

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What can I say, plenty of materials, everything ready, useful notes, a great pace so that we covered lots of techniques, freedom to explore and all held in a terrific clean and well equipped workshop surrounded by inspiring work from other artists.  The staff were friendly, we were supplied with copious amounts of tea and biscuits and I left with a real sense of achievement looking forward to revisiting some of my own painted work using the techniques covered in the workshop.

Of all the places to be and forget my camera.  Bristol looked fantastic with some of the first sun for at least three weeks.  Although travelling alone, there was a welcoming B&B The Greenhouse, (you get a discount if you are doing a glass course) some great places to eat The Souk Kitchen a long walk around the waterside area and the Olympic opening ceremony on the TV.  What more could be required?

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Monday 6 August 2012

Bury St Edmunds Cathedral

Waiting for the rock music at Abbeyfest to start a few weeks back (Mid July) and since this was my first visit to Bury St Edmunds I decided to take a wander around town and just take a quick tour of the Cathedral to see f there was any glass that was of interest. The Victorian creation window just inside the main entrance was charming and I can imagine children coming to the services spending quite a lot of time trying to spot the different animals shown in the window. (I certainly did ;-) )

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One panel of the creation window