Images on the blog

Here are blown glass vessels based on 16th century Humpen. These were ceremonial glasses made in central Europe for around 150-200 years. Often they had a trail or painted divisions for a drinking game. You had to drink down to the first trail in one gulp and if you failed, you had to drink to the next. Other times the glasses were painted with coats of arms or the double headed eagle of the Hapsburg Empire. I took the idea of the divisions to make the breaks necessary in the glass in order to get inside and do the gilding and painting. I am experimenting with different ways of using the divisions: making them a feature or ignoring them, as with these ones. Other pictures on the site are of blown bubbles which I have cut horizontally to allow access. Gilding is applied also to the outer surface and fired on. This way I can make layers and create depth, using the thickness of the glass. The thickness of the glass, as with the heavy red glass shown earlier, has an important part to play with decoration applied front and back.
If you are a reader and find this of interest, do let me know and I can write more.