Skip to content

Past Work - My Face

 My Face in Glass

              

Sheet of 6mm thick float glass slumped over a positive mould using a 2 stage process -  getting the glass to fold around the mould at 670 degrees and then giving it 5 minutes at 780 degrees to pick up more of the detail.

While it was still very hot – about 700 degrees – I took it out of the kiln and sprayed it with water to crack it. I then returned it to the kiln and raised the temperature to fuse the cracks and then cooled it gradually to anneal it.  After it had cooled, I rubbed a mixture of copper oxide and water into the cracks and roughness on the inside of the mask and fired it again – to make the cracks and surface texture stand out.

I like the result although it’s not what I originally planned.  I had wanted to craze the face but fusing healed the smaller cracks.  Also, I had expected the copper oxide to create a turquoise colour of a copper salt, not a pink colour of pure copper. It might turn turquoise in time.  More experiments beckon!

 

 Clay moulding of my face by Peter Heywood  Glass mask of my face by Peter Heywood  A variation on the glass mould of my face

Very wet terracotta clay pressed into a negative mould and allowed to dry before biscuit firing.  I was trying to make it even more fragmented than this!

           Strips of scrap float glass stacked up inside a negative mould and then fused at 780 degrees.               Triangles of scrap float glass fused into a sheet and then slumped over a positive mould in a second kiln firing.  The slumping was done in 2 stages – getting the glass to fold around the mould at 670 and then giving it 5 minutes at 780 to pick up more of the detail.

 Gelflex copy of my hand

              

I’ve also made a Gelflex copy of my hand, with a view to using it in conjunction with the Gelflex copy of my face to experiment with a  "personal" version of my “no evil” glass blocks.

 

‹‹ Back