More glass
My father emailed me Wednesday night, asking if he could buy one of my glass pieces for my mom for her upcoming birthday (Jan. 13). He thought maybe the remaining cat vase, but they have rather a surfeit of vases at the moment, so I thought about what they use every day and came up with a suggestion: juice glasses. (Not highball glasses--they don't drink mixed drinks, only the occasional jot of wine or sherry for my dad.) They are still using the same old golden plastic restaurant-style drinking glasses they've had since I was a child, and I think it would be nice for them to have something a little prettier.
I thought about all sorts of designs, including a series of favorite birds, but decided that the "canvas" was simply too small for me to be able to do birds as well as I would like. I considered ginkgo leaves as well, but the tolerances at that size are pretty tight for the veining. Then it hit me: roses. My mom's name is Rose, and she loves the flower. So I started noodling with designs and looking at pictures online. I found a basic rose border illustration I liked, and started playing with it, simplifying and altering shapes and moving things around, adding and subtracting, enlarging some bits, and basically turning it into something that was better for sandblasting and had my own creative stamp on it.
I started cutting the design last night; wow, what a lot of cutting! It is taking me almost an hour to cut each one, but I think the end results will be worth it. Here is a picture of one of the glasses with the resist cut. Exposed areas will be carved, and the stems and vines will be second and third stages. I really hope it comes out well.
As I work, I've been watching (or "watching") episodes of the original Stargate* on Hulu. I can get a bit of a gauge on how long I've been working based on how many episodes I've gone through. I started cutting last night during the broadcast of CSI, continued during The Mentalist, and then worked through four episodes of Stargate. So that's... almost six hours. I took a break in the middle to have something to eat, and ended up getting to bed around 4:30 this morning. Fortunately, all the cutting is done, so all I have left is to finish adding the stencils for my signature and tape off the top and bottom. I may even get into the blast room today if I quit writing now and get on with it.
More pictures once I've finished.
*I'm up to season 4, episode 9. When you consider that I only watch it while I work, that's a considerable amount of time. (73 episodes worth. Yikes!)
I thought about all sorts of designs, including a series of favorite birds, but decided that the "canvas" was simply too small for me to be able to do birds as well as I would like. I considered ginkgo leaves as well, but the tolerances at that size are pretty tight for the veining. Then it hit me: roses. My mom's name is Rose, and she loves the flower. So I started noodling with designs and looking at pictures online. I found a basic rose border illustration I liked, and started playing with it, simplifying and altering shapes and moving things around, adding and subtracting, enlarging some bits, and basically turning it into something that was better for sandblasting and had my own creative stamp on it.
I started cutting the design last night; wow, what a lot of cutting! It is taking me almost an hour to cut each one, but I think the end results will be worth it. Here is a picture of one of the glasses with the resist cut. Exposed areas will be carved, and the stems and vines will be second and third stages. I really hope it comes out well.
As I work, I've been watching (or "watching") episodes of the original Stargate* on Hulu. I can get a bit of a gauge on how long I've been working based on how many episodes I've gone through. I started cutting last night during the broadcast of CSI, continued during The Mentalist, and then worked through four episodes of Stargate. So that's... almost six hours. I took a break in the middle to have something to eat, and ended up getting to bed around 4:30 this morning. Fortunately, all the cutting is done, so all I have left is to finish adding the stencils for my signature and tape off the top and bottom. I may even get into the blast room today if I quit writing now and get on with it.
More pictures once I've finished.
*I'm up to season 4, episode 9. When you consider that I only watch it while I work, that's a considerable amount of time. (73 episodes worth. Yikes!)