Diary of a Demented Store Owner

Wednesday 11 September 2013

A Peek at a Process.

Playing around awhile ago, we decided to further immortalize one of popular music's most iconic albums, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (what you thought Mikey was 3 Mustaphas 3 fan?)(actually I am, it's just that the artwork on their 'Soup of the Century' is a bit complex for glass... Mikey). 
But naturally we would do this Pink Floyd classic with a bit of a spin- we call ours Warped Side of the Moon-



The triangle (actually a prism) that dominates the design would prove to be a bit of a problem as the black centre fades out almost to white around the perimeter. A perfect opportunity to play with some powders. You can mix them with various mediums (CMC, aloe vera gel, etc) but we tried (and succeeded?) using black powder just dry on a white triangle of SP209 White. 



This gives us an opportunity to discuss Spectrum's two fusible whites. You see, they make a 200 white which is solid and dense in colour. It's ok, but a little too dead for our liking. It also is a colour that can be sometimes problematic with devitrification. Whereas the 209 white is just as white in reflected light but has a real nice 'ghosty' look to it due to it being about half as dense so it transmit as much light as it reflects. Makes for a more lively and warmer white!? And it is much easier to cut as you can see below.
Back to the art, we cut the (warped) triangle-



and through some trial and error (and maybe a bit of scotch) did an ok job replicating the feathered edge and dense centre-



We then fired the triangle on its own-



and then placed it on a already fired blank of SPBlack Aventurine capped with SPClear THICK (5mm)-



The extra thickness was necessary as the finished piece is quite large. A really nice touch is to lay up the design elements (rainbow, triangle, etc) on top of the thick clear as this gives it some extra depth as it looks like it is floating above the Aventurine base-



A final slump and all is done. 
And remember- analog rules! Play vinyl...


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Aloe vera gel??? What affect does that have on glass?