Did I mention the scatterbrain syndrome, I suffer from? This might look like another symptom. Yesterday I finally pulled out all the mis-casts of glass, castings that have in one way or another gone wrong, sketches, kiln misfiring etc. and I took all 50+ kg to a big industrial sandblasting facility, where they very kindly and for a small fee, let me blast all the surface clean so I can re-use the glass in new castings. This one above is not a castaway, it is a sketch moving forward from these and though I like where it is going, it wasn't perfect and there is just too much good glass in that, to not use. The sketch lives on in digital life, tomorrow I am remelting all the good reclaimed glass.

I am brewing up a storm... more to come

I am up-scaling the wax dipping, the little white one is the original size I experimented with.

Lots of tests and experimenting with dipping in wax. I need bigger balloons, but have a top tip for trying this at home; when the balloon is dipped in the hot wax the air inside the balloon will expand and depending on how hard it has been blown up, how quick it is dipped and how hot the wax is, there is a real risk of the balloon exploding. My experience now tells me, that the wax is distributed well and evenly over the entire 2-3 meter radius surrounding the pot. The good news is though that the tiny droplets of wax set cold flying in air and one can clean it of easier than wax melted on to a surface.

And then the bad news. This one, I was hoping to submit to an exhibition, but two days out of the kiln it has developed a long crack. Maybe bad annealing, maybe the colours are not compatible, I don't know, but this is 6 kg of glass gone as it was all ready a reuse of glass from another piece with crack building tendencies and I am leaning towards the later explanation.

More work and different stages of my current fascination with card board and wax. These are still very much sketches and I am starting to see some directions I want to go in. As in building openings into the forms and bigger contrasts between areas of big solids and trails of in to smaller busy blocks. Also learning as I go, that pouring the wax into the hollow card board form is best done not too hot, at the stage just before it starts setting. And the seams and corners needs to be well sealed with tape.

Husband thinks they are very Star Trek.. I am not worried yet, I have plans with the glass stage, but he could end up being right.

It has taken me over a month from getting back from Europe, full with inspiration and keen to make, till I have actually made it into the workshop. Friday I kick-started work by sitting up till 1.30 AM cutting and sticky-taping card board pieces together into form. I am sure there is an easier process for making this form, but I love the growing of it this way. Just like when I have build before in clay upside down on a convex base, I am a little removed from the end result and can let go of the controls, so forms develop. It is hollow and I have now poured hot wax in the inside and peeled the card board of. Ready for casting plaster and melting the wax out. This is my first time working with lost wax and glass - I know the theory behind but ..

My husband is keen on baking and apart from the obvious benefit of nice fresh bread, I now have two beautiful and practical stone worktops for anything involving plaster. It comes from him wanting a cheap baking stone, hence asking at the local kitchen table top makers, if they had any off cuts spare. Turns out, they are happy to get rid of them for free, they have to pay pr. kilo otherwise. A bit of cutting with the angle grinder may be necessary, but you don't get a better value for money (read= beer) or a better non stick, easy clean plastering work surface.

Let me know if you need a good pizza dough recipe now..

these are halves of plaster moulds before I close them up
and fill them with crushed glass. I love some of the forms hiding inside.
I would like to make glass in the shape of the actual plaster mould,
the negative form of what I model with my hands.
It will take a lot of reverse process and some silicon I think.

It's all about the setting-up exercises